Yucca Mountain News Clips
Friday, October 8, 2004
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Las Vegas SUN
October 08, 2004
RFK Jr. says nuke waste should stay at power plants
By Mary Manning
<manning@lasvegassun.com>
Las Vegas SUN
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his six children live in New York, 10 miles downwind from Indian Point, the oldest nuclear power plant in the United States, but he said Thursday its nuclear wastes should not be shipped across country to Nevada for burial.
While the nuclear industry is eager to open Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, as the nation's high-level nuclear waste repository, New Yorkers are uneasy about shipments of the nuclear waste passing by their homes, schools and hospitals, Kennedy said to more than 100 people at UNLV Thursday night.
"They (nuclear industry) are desperate to open Yucca Mountain," Kennedy said.
Kennedy, a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, chief prosecuting attorney for Riverkeeper and president of Waterkeeper Alliance, said that a Yucca Mountain repository would allow nuclear power plants to continue operating.
"We don't want them to transport those fuel rods out of New York," Kennedy said.
Instead, the nuclear wastes that will remain radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years could be stored in dry casks at the reactor sites.
"The problem is, the industry has to pay for it if stored on site, but if they ship it out here, the public has to pay for it."
President Bush made a promise to Nevada that he would stick to sound science, Kennedy said.
Scientists have said that more than 100 unanswered questions remain about the mountain's ability to contain radioactive wastes for thousands of years. A federal judge ordered the Energy Department and the Environmental Protection Agency to protect future generations from radiation exposure.
"They were all wrong on the geology in the first place."
In his book, "Crimes Against Nature," Kennedy charges that Bush's administration deliberately set out to distort science. Nobel Prize winners and distinguished scientists from the National Academy of Sciences to universities have signed letters protesting Bush policies on global warming, genetic studies and environmental research.
"I want to be very clear here: This book is not about a Democrat attacking a Republican administration," he said.
The book reveals Bush appointees, most of them unfamiliar to the public, who bring corporate influence into the Oval Office and contributions to GOP coffers.
Kennedy said he believes in America's free market system because capitalism promotes efficiency and discipline. However, the public shares in common resources such as clean air, clean water, forests and wildlands.
"I don't think it is radical to protect the air and the water," Kennedy said. "I don't believe there is such a thing as Democratic children or Republican children."
Asked if he planned to run for office like his father, Kennedy Jr. replied:
"If I can escape that fate, I will."
Kennedy said he felt that he was effective in his roles as attorney, activist, professor and fisherman. His childhood fishing trips on the Hudson River led him into environmental activism.
Throughout his 45-minute speech that drew a standing ovation, Kennedy never mentioned Democratic presidential challenger Sen. John Kerry.
Kennedy's visit to UNLV was part of a 10-college campus tour after his book, subtitled, "How George W. Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy."
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Las Vegas SUN
October 08, 2004
Emergency funds sought for state's fight against Yucca
By Cy Ryan
<cy@lasvegassun.com>
Sun Capital Bureau
CARSON CITY -- The state Nuclear Projects Office is seeking an emergency appropriation of $1.1 million to carry on the fight against Yucca Mountain.
The request goes before the state Board of Examiners on Tuesday, when the board will also consider a $650,000 emergency allocation to Attorney General Brian Sandoval to continue the legal battle against the proposed nuclear dump, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The federal Yucca Mountain budget is still in question because Congress will not pass the spending bill allocating money to it until after the Nov. 2 election.
The state receives federal money to fight the project but has not received as much as it has wanted in the past year.
Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee that funds the project is working to cut the overall Yucca budget, which could ultimately delay the project, but in the meantime the state needs money to continue fighting it.
Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Nuclear Projects Office, said his budget is "tapped out" and the Energy Department intends to file its application in December for a permit to build the repository. If the federal government submits its application in December, Loux said his office will have 90 days to review whether it is complete. The $1.1 million will carry the projects office through the end of February, but "we may have to come back for more money," he said.
Loux's office must retain experts to review the department's license application and must put all of the state's documents on the electronic system in preparation for the hearing by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The state was getting $2.5 million from the federal government to help in the battle against Yucca Mountain, but that amount was slashed by 60 percent to $1 million. The department and the commission both denied requests from the state for more financial assistance, leaving the state to wait for Congress to pass a bill or get more money from the state.
In approving the budget for the nuclear projects office, the 2003 Legislature anticipated the $2.5 million would be forthcoming in each of the two fiscal years.
If the Board of Examiners, made up of Gov. Kenny Guinn, Secretary of State Dean Heller and Sandoval, approves the request, it goes to the Legislative Interim Finance Committee, which has about $3.3 million left in its emergency fund. The committee is scheduled to meet Nov. 17.
The 2003 Legislature allocated $2 million to the attorney general's office for legal costs, including hiring outside lawyers, to pursue the court battle against Yucca Mountain.
State Budget Director Perry Comeaux said Thursday that the attorney general's office had the authority to carry the balance of unused funds from one year to the next. About $1 million was used in the first year but Sandoval's office did not carry forward the additional $1 million into this fiscal year, so the money reverted to the general treasury.
Sandoval also could have asked the finance committee for permission to carry the unspent money in fiscal 2004 forward to this fiscal year but he did not.
Comeaux said Sandoval is now asking for the $650,000 to cover outstanding and expected litigation expenditures through February next year.
Sandoval said he thought the Interim Finance Committee gave him authority in April this year to carry the money forward but there was a "misunderstanding."
He said the $650,000 is just a part of the $1 million that he had authority to spend.
Sandoval said he needs the money because the state has filed suit in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington D.C. contending the federal government improperly withheld about $4 million from the state for the nuclear budget. He said arguments are set for Jan. 12 next year.
In addition, he said, the Nuclear Energy Institute has indicated it will appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington D.C. in which the state won a victory.
The appellate court ruled in July that the EPA's 10,000-year radiation standard for the proposed repository at Yucca unlawfully deviated from the stricter National Academy of Sciences recommendation.
The court ruling, coupled with a decision by a NRC panel that the department did not meet documentation requirements were a setback for project and uncertainty in the fiscal 2005 budget number have left the project hanging until Congress or a court makes more decisions.
The state wants to be on a level playing field, Loux has said. If the department gets all the money it needs and is able move forward with the project, the state wants the money it needs to move ahead with the fight.
The state hired attorney Joseph R. Egan of Washington, D.C., at a rate of $395 an hour and also Antonio Rossmann, a San Francisco attorney, for $300 an hour to represent Nevada in the legal battle.
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Las Vegas SUN
October 07, 2004
Majority strongly opposed to Yucca
Poll: Issue unlikely to affect voters' choice for president
By Steve Kanigher
<steve@lasvegassun.com>
Las Vegas SUN
The majority of very likely voters contacted in a statewide poll were opposed to a federal government plan to turn Yucca Mountain into the world's first permanent underground storage site for high-level nuclear waste.
But when it came down to ranking the importance of the Yucca Mountain issue in their vote for president, 57 percent said it would not be important, 36 percent said it would be one of several important issues, and only 5 percent said it would be the most important issue.
For those likely voters who said that the respective positions of Republican President Bush and Democratic challenger John Kerry on Yucca Mountain would influence their vote for president, a majority said they were more likely to vote for Kerry.
The statewide Las Vegas Sun/Channel 8 Eyewitness News/KNPR Nevada Public Radio poll of 600 very likely voters was taken Sept. 20 through Sept. 28 by the Washington-based polling firm Belden Russonello & Stewart. The poll had a margin of error of 4 percentage points.
When asked their position on having a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, 56 percent of those polled said they strongly opposed the plan and 10 percent said they were somewhat opposed. Only 14 percent strongly favored the proposal and 13 percent were somewhat supportive.
"That's a pretty wide margin," Kate Stewart, a partner in the polling firm, said.
Those who were strongly opposed to the repository plan included a higher percentage of the women than the men (65 percent and 48 percent, respectively), a much higher percentage of Democrats than Republicans (81 and 33), and a much higher percentage of Kerry backers than Bush supporters (78 and 32).
"It's not that salient of an issue but it's clearly a partisan issue," UNLV political science professor David Damore said. "I'm surprised at how much the Republicans have conceded this issue."
While 58 percent of voters who identified themselves as independent said they were strongly opposed to the Yucca Mountain proposal -- placing them about halfway between the Democrats and Republicans -- 73 percent of the voters undecided in the presidential contest also expressed strong opposition. That result is more in line with the backers of Kerry, a Massachusetts senator.
Overall, 89 percent of likely voters who identified themselves as Democrats either strongly or somewhat opposed the repository plan, compared with 44 percent of the likely voters who identified themselves as Republicans.
Conversely, 46 percent of those who identified themselves as Republicans either strongly or somewhat supported Yucca Mountain as a repository, compared with 9 percent of the likely voters who identified themselves as Democrats.
Damore said he was surprised that there weren't more voters who identified themselves as Republicans expressing strong opposition to Yucca Mountain, given the opposition voiced by Gov. Kenny Guinn and Nevada Attorney General Brian Sandoval, both Republicans.
"Maybe they think it's inevitable and figure, 'Why fight it?' " Damore said of Republicans. "It doesn't jibe with the rhetoric you hear from Guinn and Sandoval."
The differences between Democrats and Republicans on Yucca Mountain were not surprising to Stewart.
"The interesting thing is that the Republican numbers are split," she said. "Right now I think the differences between Democrats and Republicans probably have to do more with Bush and Kerry's position on this."
The poll informed likely voters that President Bush has said he approves of sending nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain and that Kerry has said that, if elected president, he would not send the waste to Yucca Mountain. Of those polled, 48 percent said that their presidential vote would not hinge on the positions Bush and Kerry have taken on Yucca Mountain.
But 26 percent of those polled said the differences on this issue would make them much more likely to vote for Kerry, and 6 percent said they would be somewhat more likely to vote for the Democrat. Only 13 percent said they would be much more likely to vote for Bush because of the Yucca Mountain issue and 4 percent said they would be somewhat more likely to back the president.
"This is a potential vulnerability for Bush and a place where Kerry can take advantage," Stewart said. "There are people who feel strongly about this issue and they're leaning toward Kerry at the moment. Kerry can talk about how Bush is out of touch with the needs of Nevada voters.
"But I don't think this is an issue a lot of people will base their vote on."
UNR political science professor Eric Herzik said the results of this poll track with others he has seen on Yucca Mountain.
"These numbers generally track well for Democrats," Herzik said. "Yucca Mountain was never an issue of strength for Republicans. It will only hurt Republicans. The question is how much?
"The Democrats think, based on their advertising, that this is a big issue. I think that that has been overstated. Issues like the war in Iraq and health care will be much more important factors."
Bush told a Las Vegas audience in August that his decision to approve Yucca Mountain as the nation's high-level nuclear waste repository was based on sound science. But Damore said the poll shows that Kerry has the edge on this issue in Nevada.
"What the Kerry campaign hasn't done is tie this more to Bush's credibility," Damore said.
Among voters who identified themselves as independent, 27 percent said they would be much more likely to vote for Kerry because of his Yucca Mountain position, but only 10 percent said they would be much more likely to vote for Bush.
Among undecided voters, 20 percent said they would be much more likely to vote for Kerry, compared with only 2 percent who said they would be much more likely to vote for Bush. In Clark County, 30 percent were much more likely to go with Kerry and only 11 percent were much more likely to vote for the president.
"This is one of those issues that will play on the edges," Stewart said. "For a segment of independents and undecided voters this could tip the balance for Kerry."
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Las Vegas SUN
October 08, 2004
Emergency funds sought for Nevada's fight against nuclear dump
Associated Press
CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) - The state Nuclear Projects Office is seeking an emergency appropriation of $1.1 million to continue its fight against the high-level nuclear waste dump that the Bush administration wants to open at Yucca Mountain in southern Nevada.
The request goes before the state Board of Examiners on Tuesday, which also will consider a $650,000 emergency allocation to Attorney General Brian Sandoval's office for its legal battle against the dump.
Bob Loux, who heads the Nuclear Projects Office, said his budget is "tapped out" and the federal Department of Energy intends to apply in December for a building permit. The filing goes to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The state was getting $2.5 million a year from the federal government to help in the battle against Yucca Mountain, but that amount was slashed to $1 million.
If the federal government submits its application in December, Loux said his office will have 90 days to review whether it is complete.
The $1.1 million will carry the projects office through the end of February, but "we may have to come back for more money," he said.
If the Board of Examiners, chaired by Gov. Kenny Guinn, approves the request, it goes to the Legislative Interim Finance Committee for final action. That panel meets Nov. 17.
Sandoval wants the $650,000 to cover outstanding and expected litigation expenditures through February next year.
The 2003 Legislature allocated $2 million to the attorney general's office for legal costs, including hiring outside lawyers, to pursue the court battle against Yucca Mountain. Half the money was spent and the rest reverted to the general treasury.
State Budget Director Perry Comeaux said the attorney general's office could have carried the unused funds over from one year to the next, but didn't. Sandoval said he thought Interim Finance gave him authority last April to carry the money forward but there was a "misunderstanding."
Sandoval said the $650,000 is needed because the state has sued in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington D.C. contending the federal government improperly withheld funds from the state for the nuclear budget. Arguments are set for Jan. 12.
Also, he said the Nuclear Energy Institute plans to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court a ruling that gave the state a partial victory in the waste dump fight.
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Pahrump Valley Times
October 8, 2004
Kerry vows to shut down Yucca effort
Associated Press
RENO - Democrat John Kerry said if he is elected president, he will refuse to fund efforts crucial to the construction of Yucca Mountain to keep the nation's nuclear waste dump from being built in Nevada.
"I'll guarantee you, if I'm president, Yucca Mountain is not going to happen," Kerry said Tuesday.
"Nevada can take that to the bank," he told KRNV-TV in Reno on Tuesday in a satellite hookup from Tipton, Iowa. "I don't think it is safe."
Kerry repeatedly has pledged to kill the high-level radioactive waste repository planned 50 miles northeast of Pahrump and 20 miles north and east of Beatty and Amargosa Valley, respectively, but Republicans argue he's powerless to do anything about it and that the federal courts ultimately will decide the fate of the project.
"I have any number of ways to keep it from happening," Kerry insisted Tuesday from Iowa where he was campaigning.
"First of all, in my budget, by not funding the things necessary to make it happen, that is a good place to start," he said.
In addition, the Department of Transportation, Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency have to approve various health and safety standards for the dump to be built, he said.
"Since I will make those appointments and I will be the president, I have the ability to guarantee those signoffs don't occur," he said.
Kerry, who repeated his pledge to visit Reno before Election Day, said scientific studies have raised serious concerns about the safety of Yucca Mountain.
"It is too bad they have been raised late. I know money has been spent. But that doesn't mean you go do something that doesn't make sense. I don't think Nevada should be made the scapegoat dumping ground and I don't intend to do it," he said.
President Bush has defended his decision to go forward with the nuclear waste dump despite it being unpopular in the swing state he won four years ago.
"I said I would make a decision based upon science, not politics," Bush told a Las Vegas crowd in August.
"I said I would listen to the scientists, those involved with determining whether or not this project could move forward in a safe manner and that's exactly what I did," he said.
Bush said he was pleased to "allow this process to be appealed to the courts and to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission."
"I will stand by the decision of the courts and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission," the president said.
Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., is among those who think the federal courts will determine if Yucca Mountain will be built "regardless of who is the president," Ensign's spokesman Jack Finn said recently.
"John Kerry says 'If I'm president, there will be no repository.' He can't make that statement. Nevadans should not believe him," Finn said.
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Pahrump Valley Times
October 8, 2004
Yucca budget on hold until after elections
Associated Press
LAS VEGAS - Congress is putting off until after the presidential election a budget fight on spending for a national nuclear waste dump in Nevada.
Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Pete Domenici, R-N.M., leaders of the Senate energy and water subcommittee, have been unable to agree on spending for the Yucca Mountain project.
Analysts say lawmakers might also look for a signal from voters whether to continue developing the repository 50 miles northeast of Pahrump and roughly 20 miles north and east of Amargosa Valley and Beatty, respectively.
Sen. John Kerry, the Democratic challenger, has told voters in Nevada he would kill the Yucca program if elected.
Republican President Bush backs the repository and authorized the Yucca project along with Congress in 2002.
The administration has asked Congress for $880 million to continue repository work in 2005. However, Congress has balked at a provision to tap $749 million by restructuring a national nuclear waste fund.
That leaves the Energy Department with $131 million to spend on the Nevada program in the fiscal year beginning Friday without making deep cuts in other energy priorities.
Brian O'Connell, nuclear waste director for the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, said Yucca backers might try to increase spending on nuclear waste issues if Bush wins.
If Kerry wins, "Congress could go with a low number and say we need a time-out," O'Connell said.
The House and Senate this week enacted temporary spending bills to keep government departments operating beyond the start of the new fiscal year. Temporary spending bills will let the Energy Department spend the same amount on the Yucca project as it spent in fiscal 2004, officials said.
Lawmakers plan a lame-duck session after the Nov. 2 elections to complete work on 2005 spending and other unfinished business.
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Lahontan Valley News
October 7, 2004
Forum outlines Yucca Mountain shipment risks
JOSH JOHNSON
jjohnson@lahontanvalleynews.com
A trailer carrying a dumbbell-shaped model with the words "MOCK NUCLEAR WASTE CASK" pulled into the parking lot of the Fallon Convention Center Wednesday, greeting visitors who would learn more about potential risks of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste depository.
Citizen's Alert, a Nevada-based environmental group, made a stop in Fallon to distribute information opposing the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage project and nuclear waste transportation. Four community members attended the forum.
Citizen's Alert is a on a 25-city tour to inform residents about the danger of nuclear waste transportation, Executive Director Peggy Maze Johnson said. The Department of Energy considers U.S. 95 a secondary route for nuclear waste transportation.
"I think that Fallon needs to be concerned because this is a bureaucracy that's running amok," Johnson said. "They should be concerned that there could be a route running through."
The Yucca Mountain site is located 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas in Nye County. The site was approved by Congress and President Bush in 2002, with shipments of nuclear waste scheduled to arrive in 2010, according to the Department of Energy. An estimated 4,300 shipments of nuclear waste may be deposited at Yucca Mountain over a 24-year period.
Waste from 131 temporary storage sites in 39 states would be shipped to Yucca Mountain if approved, Citizen's Alert Field Director Hal Nelson said. The waste would pass within a half mile of 50 million people along the route.
Nuclear power corporations should assume the burden of nuclear waste and build more permanent storage casks, Johnson said. This would save the federal government money and avoid the risky transportation of radioactive materials across the country.
"In our experience, the Department of Energy does what it wants to do," Johnson said. "It's decided to be in charge of transportation. We don't trust the DOE."
Fallon retiree Bill Jacobi attended the forum in support of the Yucca Mountain project. The transportation and storing of waste will create jobs in Nevada, he said.
"Who cares in 10,000 years?" Jacobi said. "In that time, we'll be smart enough to deal with it. Humans may not even be around by then."
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
October 08, 2004
SLAIN SENATOR'S SON: Environment under attack, Kennedy says
Bush track record on water, air quality criticized
By Keith Rogers
Review-Journal
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. came to Las Vegas on Thursday to bash President Bush's environmental track record, "not because he's a Republican," but because Kennedy believes the president has manipulated laws that protect land, air and water and America's quality of life.
"It's a stealth attack," Kennedy, 50, said about what he claims are some 400 rollbacks that Bush and his Cabinet have made to provisions in the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act.
Gutting one rule in the Clean Air Act known as "new source review" allows coal-fired power plants to belch unhealthful levels of mercury, particulates and ozone-forming compounds into the air, Kennedy said.
He cited Bush's favoritism to what he said are some of the nation's biggest polluters who created "the mess in Texas" while Bush was governor there and while the state fell to the bottom rungs of environmental quality.
"The Mess in Texas" is a chapter in Kennedy's new book, "Crimes Against Nature -- How George W. Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy."
Kennedy, whose father, Robert F. Kennedy, was assassinated in Los Angeles during the 1968 presidential campaign, discussed his book in an interview at the Review-Journal several hours before a speech on the same topic Thursday night at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
"Let me say this, the book is not a partisan book. I've been careful to be nonpartisan and bipartisan during my 20 years as an environmental advocate," Kennedy said.
He admitted, however, that "it's a political book. I want to see President Bush defeated, but it's not because he's a Republican. I don't think there is any such thing as Republican children and Democratic children.
"My experience is the Republicans care as much about the environment as the Democrats do," Kennedy said adding, "Now the worst thing that can happen is that it becomes a partisan, political issue. ... But you can't talk honestly about the environment in any context today without speaking critically about this president."
As in the oil and coal industry, Kennedy said, Bush's decision on nuclear waste and his approval of the Department of Energy's plans for burying the most deadly type of it in Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, was driven by cronyism.
"We think the safest thing we can do with it is dry cask it and store it on site," Kennedy said. "We don't want to ship it across country through hundreds of communities across thousands of miles where it would be vulnerable to attack or to accident."
A Kennedy critic says Bush is being wrongly accused of shirking environmental protections.
Jonathan Adler, assistant law professor at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and contributing editor of National Review Online, said by telephone the heart and soul of the Clean Air Act is intact.
The Bush administration is still making companies comply with the rules, Adler said.
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Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
October 08, 2004
Commerce secretary says oil prices will drop, advocates nuclear power
By Avrum D. Lank
alank@journalsentinel.com
Waukesha - Oil prices eventually will settle at around $35 a barrel as the nation responds to high prices by demanding less energy, Donald Evans, U.S. Secretary of Commerce, told business leaders at a campaign stop Thursday.
He added that greater use of nuclear power eventually will be part of the answer to the nation's energy needs.
Oil closed Thursday at $52.67 a barrel, more than what it cost in May 2003 and far above the $18 a barrel that it sold for in January 2002.
A former oil industry executive, Evans explained the price run-up by noting that the world's capacity to produce additional oil "has evaporated" in recent months because of supply disruptions and increased demand from emerging economies.
"When prices go up, demand goes down," he said during the meeting at the Country Inn Hotel and Conference Center. "It takes time. It works its way through the economy over years, but there will be a demand response."
He said that when the adjustment occurs, prices will end up in the "middle to high $30s" a barrel. "I wouldn't stick my head in the sand" and expect prices to be much lower, he added.
In a news conference following his meeting, Evans declined to predict when prices would break. He also said that there was no need for aggressive government action to help the process along, such as raising the fuel efficiency standards for automobiles.
In his meeting, Evans said that one way to reduce the demand for oil and natural gas is "to pound the table for nuclear power."
Nuclear energy plants produce cheaper, cleaner energy than other types of generators with no emissions of carbon dioxide, he said.
"I think it (nuclear power) ought to be a major part of our energy mix in decades ahead," he said.
The last nuclear power plant went on line in the U.S. in 1996 in Tennessee.
Asked about the problem of disposing of spent nuclear fuel, he said work is moving ahead on creating a central depository at Yucca Mountain, Nev.
Wisconsin has imposed a moratorium on the construction of new nuclear plants until such a site is available.
"I'm going to stay optimistic" about the future of nuclear fuel, Evans said.
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Deseret News
October 08, 2004
Utah's nuclear waste ploy fails
Plan might have blocked storage, even protected Hill
By Jerry Spangler and Donna Kemp Spangler
Deseret Morning News
WASHINGTON — A behind-the-scenes attempt by the Utah delegation to attach wilderness language to the Defense Reauthorization Act — which could have blocked the temporary storage of high-level nuclear waste in Utah and helped protect Hill Air Force Base — has fallen short.
A conference committee of senators and representatives working out differences between two versions of the bill has refused to include language, already part of a House version of the bill, that would have declared the Cedar Mountains area of Tooele County a wilderness area.
"It is a disappointment," said Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah. "A lot of bipartisan effort by all members of the Utah delegation went into trying to get it in."
Matheson and other Utah officials did not know why the conference committee did not agree to the wilderness language.
A wilderness designation could have blocked the construction of a railroad spur needed to transport nuclear waste to Goshute Indian tribal lands in Skull Valley.
Private Fuel Storage (PFS), a consortium of mostly Eastern nuclear power utilities, has a contract with the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes to store 40,000 tons of nuclear waste in above-ground canisters on tribal lands about 75 miles southwest of Salt Lake City.
The site would be "temporary" storage inasmuch as the contract is for 20 years with an option for a 20-year renewal. But Utah officials have been fighting the proposal, fearing that temporary storage would become permanent and citing a litany of environmental and public health concerns.
The language was included in the House version of the bill, at the behest of Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, who had a stand-alone bill on the same issue that passed out of a House committee unanimously. But attempts to keep it in during the conference committee failed.
"This seems to me to be a repeat of the stealth tactic (former Rep. Jim Hansen, R-Utah) tried to do," said Sue Martin, spokeswoman for PFS.
Utah Gov. Olene Walker met with the Utah delegation earlier this week to plot strategy, and the wilderness approach was deemed the best strategy currently available to help the state's efforts to block the waste.
Utah officials had raised the wilderness issue during hearings by the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, a three-judge panel deciding whether to recommend federal approval of the PFS license. The board rejected the state's argument.
The wilderness language is supported by Utah environmental groups and Hill Air Force Base, which sees it as a way to preserve the viability of its Utah Test and Training Range.
"It's a three-fer," one Utah official said.
In fact, the drive to protect Hill Air Force Base is every bit as strong among the Utah delegation as is the effort to keep nuclear waste out of Utah.
"The Air Force sees (the storage of nuclear waste in Tooele County) as a real threat to their training operations," said one member of Utah's delegation, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Walker also played up efforts to save Hill, which will be considered for closure under the next round of national hearings on which military bases to close. "It would be a great way to preserve the purity of the Utah Test and Training Range," Walker said.
Matheson said it is not a stretch of the imagination to include the wilderness language in the Defense Reauthorization Act because there is such a strong defense component with the viability of the Utah Test and Training Range at stake.
Walker also emphasized that the wilderness strategy was just one of many discussed by the delegation.
Utah officials are discussing whether to appeal a decision by a federal court judge that state law cannot supersede federal law on the regulation of nuclear waste. Walker pointed out that Minnesota has a law prohibiting the storage of nuclear waste there and that law has not been overturned by federal courts.
"Getting the Supreme Court to even consider it would be hard, and whether they would even consider it, I don't know," she said.
Officials say they also discussed ways to negotiate with the Goshutes to get them to voluntarily abandon the idea of nuclear waste storage.
And there is talk about working with Nevada, where all nuclear waste is ultimately headed under current federal policy. Yucca Mountain in southern Nevada has been designated as a permanent repository for the nation's stockpile of nuclear waste, and the Nevada delegation has been fighting it tooth and nail.
The Utah delegation has supported the Yucca Mountain solution, which has put it at odds with its neighbors to the west.
"We talked about a lot of next-steps," Walker said.
"The day is not done on this one," Matheson said.
E-mail: spang@desnews.com; donna@desnews.com
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
October 08, 2004
Texas OK sought for waste
Company wants to store nuclear material from Ohio
The Associated Press
DALLAS -- A company is seeking state permission to accept millions of pounds of radioactive waste from U.S. weapons programs.
Officials in Utah and Nevada already have rejected requests from the company to take the waste, now stored at an aging U.S. Department of Energy Superfund site in Ohio.
Waste Control Specialists says the material can be safely stored at the company's hazardous waste facility in Andrews County. The waste consists mainly of uranium tailings that have been encased for decades in concrete silos in Ohio.
The company has filed applications with the Texas Department of State Health Services. One would amend its current state license to expand the volume of hazardous material that can be stored by 1.5 million cubic feet. The other seeks permission to accept uranium tailings, material left from the processing of uranium ore for nuclear weapons and defense projects, The Dallas Morning News reported Thursday.
Environmental groups oppose the applications.
"There's a reason why both Utah and Nevada would not accept this stuff. It's very dangerous," said Margot Clark, outreach coordinator for the state chapter of the Sierra Club. "We don't think Texas should become a dumping site for waste from weapons development. Besides that, the Waste Control Specialists facility has never dealt with this kind of waste before."
Attorney Mike Woodward, who represents the company, said the uranium tailings that would be stored carry little risk.
"It is far less dangerous than much of the hazardous material being moved around the country regularly," he said, noting that it is less active than most types of low-level nuclear waste. He said the company had not secured a contract with the Energy Department to take the waste.
"Our facility in Andrews County would be a very appropriate spot. It is located away from population centers and water. The geology is very stable, and the climate is very dry."
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Knight-Ridder
October 07, 2004
Though strongly GOP, Democrats may exploit Nevada's growth woes
By Laura Kurtzman
Knight Ridder Newspapers
LAS VEGAS - In the four years since George W. Bush beat Al Gore by about 22,000 votes in Nevada, the state has added nearly 15 times that many people.
Many are thought to be blue-collar workers drawn by Las Vegas' thriving tourist industry, and as much as anything in this unsettled political season, these newcomers are keeping Nevada and its five electoral votes in play.
Bush won the state by 4 percentage points in 2000 and Republicans swept all six statewide offices two years later.
But as the nation's fastest-growing state, Nevada is beset by growth-related problems - from too few schools to inadequate health care - that could make the state ever more friendly to the Democrats.
Nevada grew by a phenomenal 70 percent from 1990 to 2000.
"Demographically, what you find is people who might be more likely to identify with the Democratic Party," said David Damore, an assistant professor of political science at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas.
But he cautioned that the boom would help the Democrats only if they succeed in turning out their voters, an area where Republicans have always done better. "At the same time," he added, "I've never seen a year like this."
With many different groups signing up voters, Democrats have seen a bonanza in registration numbers.
Although they began the year at a numeric disadvantage, the Democrats pulled even with Republicans by August and are now slightly ahead, according to officials with both parties. The number of Democratic voters in Clark County, where Las Vegas is located and where about 1.6 million of the state's 2.4 million people live, increased by 25 percent.
Republicans have launched their own effort, much of it by mail, registering enough new voters to raise their smaller base by 20 percent in Clark County.
Polls show the Nevada race remains tight. A Mason-Dixon poll for the Las Vegas Review-Journal and Review-Journal.com done in mid-September found Bush leading Democratic presidential challenger John Kerry 50 percent to 45 percent among likely voters in the state. The margin of error was 4 percentage points. Four other polls, all done before the first debate between Bush and Kerry on Sept. 30, also had Bush in the lead, with margins ranging from 2 to 9 percentage points.
Some analysts are surprised to find that Bush needs to fight for the state. Nevada's booming economy, as evidenced by the construction cranes that rise above the Las Vegas strip, should be good news for the president.
But his decision to allow the nation's nuclear waste to be stored at an underground repository in Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, appears to have hurt him with some voters.
On visits to Nevada, Kerry has attacked Bush over Yucca Mountain and has said he would stop the project, but he hasn't said what he would do with the nuclear waste.
"If you're ready to stop it (the spent fuel) here, what are you going to do with it?" asked Chris Carr, the executive director of the Nevada Republican Party.
Some say Kerry's attacks would have found a wider audience if he'd made Yucca Mountain part of a larger argument about what Bush has done wrong on the environment.
"I would have pounded away, if I was Kerry, the fact that Bush reversed quite a few of the clean air, clean water initiatives that affect Lake Tahoe," said Billy Vassiliadis, a Democratic consultant in Las Vegas. He faults Kerry's national campaign for being flat-footed when it comes to local issues.
Instead, it's been the Bush campaign that's blanketed the airwaves in Reno, where Lake Tahoe is located, with messages to shore up the heavily Republican base there. Those voters tend to be more moderate than the president on social issues and on the environment. In the first three weeks of August, the Bush campaign advertised more in Reno than in any other market in the nation.
Before the advertising, said Pete Ernaut, a Republican consultant in Reno, polls showed a tie in Washoe County, where Reno is located, despite the Republicans' 15-point registration advantage.
But after the Republican convention, he said, Bush was leading by 8 or 9 points, "which is where we should be." He added that the change was a reflection of "not just the success of the Bush message, but it's also the weakness of the Kerry message."
Republicans also are heartened by the presence of independent candidate Ralph Nader on the ballot, although he's barely registered in the polls.
Democrats, however, may have other reasons to hope for victory.
A ballot measure to raise the minimum wage and a hot race in the 3rd congressional district, which includes the southern portion of Las Vegas, are expected to bring Democrats to the polls.
And then there's the success of their voter registration groups.
"It's been startling," said Ralston, the analyst. "It's got to be worrying the Republicans."
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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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