Yucca Mountain News Clips
Monday, November 8, 2004
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Las Vegas SUN
November 08, 2004
Editorial: No surrender on Yucca
It would be wrong to assume that because President Bush carried Nevada by more than 21,000 votes that Yucca Mountain is no longer a central issue here. For more than 20 years, Nevadans have fought against the federal government's unsafe proposal to turn Yucca Mountain in Southern Nevada into the nation's repository for high-level nuclear waste.
And the fight continues. In a state-funded survey of Nevadans conducted last month, nearly 73 percent of the respondents said the state should continue its legal battle.
This may at first sound paradoxical. President Bush strongly supports Yucca Mountain. And Sen. John Kerry strongly opposed it. So why did a majority of Nevadans support Bush?
The answer is that, for a majority Nevadans, Yucca Mountain wasn't the priority in the national election. A poll partially funded by this newspaper before the election showed that while most Nevadans oppose Yucca Mountain, just 5 percent thought it was the most important issue in electing a president. As subsequent polls have found, terrorism and moral values were uppermost in the minds of voters in deciding whether to vote for Bush or Kerry.
We agree with the 73 percent in the state's survey who felt that Nevada should continue its fight against Yucca Mountain. A federal court decision earlier this year gave us a winning shot. It ruled that the Energy Department had deviated from a National Academy of Sciences recommendation about the length of time the mountain should protect against radiation. It's not likely the mountain could be built to the recommended standard, meaning Nevada has a strong argument that should not be abandoned -- no matter how some people might try to interpret the vote on Election Day.
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Yucca Mountain Matters
November 1, 2004
Citizen Alert Launches Ads to highlight coming battles for Yucca Mountain
Nevada's fate as the nation's nuclear dumping ground has yet to be decided. So says a new radio campaign produced by Citizen Alert.
http://www.yuccamountainmatters.com/temp/index.php?option=free&id=201
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Daily Princetonian
November 08, 2004
Campus Briefs
Conference looks at ways to dispose nuclear waste
Atoms are tiny, but they pack some punch, especially when they pile up in the form of nuclear waste.
To address the difficult problem of their disposal, Angela Creager and Michael Gordin, professors in the University's Program in the History of Science, organized a conference from Friday to Saturday.
Harvard professor Peter Galison gave the keynote address: "Wastelands and Wilderness: Forbidden Zones of Nuclear Desecration and Natural Sanctification" in McCormick Hall.
"No one has any good idea of how much the project will cost, but no one estimates it at less than half a trillion dollars," he said of the magnitude of the cleanup challenge. "And that's just the beginning."
Nuclear waste differs from toxic waste in its unusual longevity, he said. Byproducts of nuclear reactions remain radioactive for tens of thousands of years.
Neither the U.S. Department of Energy nor atomic scientists have a convincing strategy to deal with nuclear waste, Galison said. Deactivating nuclear waste is currently impossible, so the Department of Energy has organized facilities like the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) to provide safe storage.
The WIPP, located in southern New Mexico, is "the world's first underground repository" licensed to permanently store waste from nuclear weapons research, according to its website.
"The problem [with permanent storage] is letting people 10,000 years in the future know that they're not supposed to dig there," Galison said.
"You could put up a sign that says 'there's something bad here; you can't see it or feel it, but if you dig here you'll die,'" he added. "But then think of all the times that we've breached signs like that," referring to expeditions into the Egyptian Pyramids.
The conference aimed to address academic and social issues. "It's not political because it's nonpartisan, but it deals with things that informed citizens should know," Gordin said.
Scientists' efforts are leading citizens and politicians to discuss the nuclear legacy of the Cold War, he said.
"I don't know if we're seeing direct effects, but we're seeing a lot of the questions raised more and more frequently; questions like what to do with waste, where it came from," Gordin said.
These same questions are being addressed by University students. Caitlin Lippincott, a geosciences senior at Franklin and Marshall College who attended the conference, is focusing her thesis on the Yucca Mountain nuclear site in Nevada.
Lippincott is also interested in nuclear energy in South Korea, which relies on nuclear power and has recently discovered fault lines under some of its power plants.
"The problem with other countries is that they like America as a model [for a storage method], and we haven't figured it out yet," she said.
Gordin said an international approach will be necessary to solve the nuclear waste question, since "its effects will be felt through our cities."
— Roberto Pena
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Las Vegas SUN
November 05, 2004
Where I Stand -- Brian Greenspun: Were we thinking?
Brian Greenspun is editor of the Las Vegas Sun.
Weekend Edition
November 6 - 7, 2004
The people have spoken. The people are always right.
There are almost half the voters in our country who don't believe that America has made the right decision. But the beauty of this country and our democratic system is that the majority has spoken clearly that President George W. Bush will be our president for the next four years, and so it shall be. And if ever there were a question about that fact -- and there must not be -- Sen. John Kerry put all that to rest on Wednesday in his concession speech.
Perhaps for the first time in his campaign, John Kerry in defeat let the people of this country know who he really is. We saw his emotion, we saw his candor, we saw his humanity. The shame is that in American politics we don't get to see very much of that from either candidate. Instead, we and they get handled by the experts who won't let the American people see who the candidate really is for fear that he may offend -- someone. But that is for another day.
Today, as someone who opposed the president's re-election, I offer my congratulations. President Bush not only won a majority of American votes, but a clear victory in the Electoral College. His victory is legitimate and, like it or not, that is the way this democracy works. When President Bush spoke to the nation an hour or two later he was gracious in victory. He was happy but humble and he reached across the political divide and spoke directly to John Kerry's supporters. He spoke of a new term in which there was a new opportunity to reach out to the "whole nation," one in which we can come together to work together because, in doing so, "there is no limit to the greatness of America."
It remains to be seen which direction the Republicans will take us now that they have firm control of the major branches of government. And with the vagaries of life on the Supreme Court, it is highly probable that Bush will stamp his brand on that institution as well. We are in a situation that is not unlike that of the Republicans for so many years when the Democratic Party was in control and the GOP felt left out of the process. And we have just witnessed the result of that policy.
So we shall see which way Bush goes, and as he goes in the next four years, so will go the fortunes of the Republican Party. Because it appears to me that the only way the Democrats can right themselves is if the opposition gives them the chance. That's because I believe the American people are basically a good and decent people who want to help their neighbors while they secure the blessings of liberty for themselves and their loved ones.
The political divide that defines the two-party system today has people of good will on both sides of the aisle with neither side having a clue how the other can think the way it does. It is starting to remind me of what people must have felt like in the middle of the 19th century when the issue of slavery divided families, friends and loved ones. As abhorrent as slavery was, there were people of goodwill who just couldn't understand why their families and friends were willing to kill each other over the need to end it.
While it isn't quite the same thing, issues like gay marriage, abortion and prayer in school have so gripped a significant portion of the voting public that they cannot contemplate another point of view. Indeed, they will not countenance an opposing opinion, and they let their voices be heard every Election Day. If we don't find a way through this problem, people of good will, good intentions and with good hearts will find themselves as separated from their friends and families as those of our ancestors did over the issue of slavery.
I also understand that Kerry's inability to carry the state of Ohio made anything we did in Nevada moot, but that doesn't excuse us for the great harm I know that we have done to the people of this state. Because, by not rebuking the president for failing to keep his promise to Nevadans about Yucca Mountain, we have condoned his choice of our state as the site for the nation's high-level nuclear waste.
As sure as I am sitting at this computer pounding out these thoughts, the White House and the Congress will move with all dispatch to change the law, change the rules and change whatever else they have to in order to make sure that Yucca Mountain opens on time -- if not sooner. By approving his decision on Yucca Mountain, which our vote did, we have removed from Sen. Harry Reid whatever ammunition he had in telling his Senate colleagues that his state was against playing host to the deadliest poison known to man.
What were we thinking? Am I that wrong? Will Yucca Mountain actually be good for us in Nevada? Will an accident on Interstate 15 help or hurt a city that depends upon the goodwill and feelings of safety of the millions of tourists who come here each year? Obviously, I am wrong because Nevadans have not heeded the warnings of the man who has to carry the fight in the United States Senate and the people who must fight the odds against a well-financed and all-powerful nuclear power industry hell-bent on burying their mistakes in our backyard.
Wrong or not, though, I will continue to inform on this issue in the hopes that one day -- hopefully before it is too late, if we have not already reached that time -- the people with the most to lose -- that would be the folks with all that money on the Strip and all those jobs in our major industry -- will wake up. Until then, I will just assume that we continue to be naive and stupid.
Someone, please, prove me wrong.
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Las Vegas SUN
November 05, 2004
Opinion: The Status Quo Election
By Jon Ralston
<ralston@vegas.com>
Weekend Edition
November 6 - 7, 2004
When Nevadans awoke after Tuesday's election, they found the power matrix here, as in Washington, had barely changed.
The congressional delegation was intact. The Republicans still controlled the state Senate, the Democrats the Assembly. Lynette Boggs McDonald was still a Clark County commissioner.
This was the Status Quo Election, from the top on down.
Nevada remains a reliably red state, although some of the blood spilled here Tuesday was Republican. A party-switching state senator (Ray Shaffer) suddenly in an unfriendly district and two inconsequential GOP assemblymen (Ron Knecht and Don Gustavson) lost their elected jobs Tuesday. But not a single Democratic incumbent lost or came close to losing -- not in federal races or legislative contests. Those that were supposed to win before Nov. 2 arose on Nov. 3 with their titles intact; those that didn't win were left contemplating a return to private life.
The real deck-shuffling occurred in the primary with the inevitable demise of indictment-burdened County Commissioner Mary Kincaid-Chauncey and the defeats of two conscientious and tireless state lawmakers. One (Sen. Ann O'Connell) got caught up in a legislative moment, said "what the heck" to a protest tax bill, and paid with her seat. Another (Sen. Ray Rawson) was ground up by a relentless opponent whose anti-tax persona and shoe leather probably made the devout Mormon incumbent want to have a few beers.
The three GOP lawmakers who lost Tuesday have never seen the word "influential" in proximity to their names. Shaffer was an opportunistic pol who switched parties so he could garner a chairmanship (the all-unimportant Transportation Committee) and went from being a Democratic backbencher to a Republican backbencher. Knecht decided it was a bright idea to fulminate against government in a state capital district teeming with government workers, and Gustavson was a one-dimensional lawmaker who knew how to say "no" but not much else. None of them will be missed.
The real story of Campaign '04 was what didn't happen, the dogs that didn't bark. Yucca Mountain was a political molehill -- we Fourth Estaters, including the national media, built it up, but the voters apparently didn't see it. The anti-tax revolution occurred only in the minds of a few frothing Republicans, ironically claiming only the tax-averse O'Connell, who signed onto a $1.6 billion bill to protest the gross receipts tax and lived to regret it. And the great, apocalyptic showdown between the doctors and the lawyers turned into a rout as the physicians used spin and money to fuel an impressive ad campaign while the attorneys tried legal legerdemain and patronizing palaver that the public soundly rejected.
All that talk of the Democrats tapping into the burgeoning Hispanic population in Southern Nevada never really materialized, either -- or at least it didn't affect the presidential campaign here. Indeed, while the Democratic machine purred nicely in key areas, guaranteeing legislative incumbents huge victory margins, it didn't change the results of the last presidential race or the previous contest for the only competitive congressional seat.
In the end, Tom Gallagher did not fare much better than Dario Herrera did in 2002 against Jon Porter, barely cracking the 40 percent barrier. And Kerry actually fared worse than Al Gore did in Clark County -- Gore defeated Bush in Southern Nevada by 6.5 percentage points in 2000 while Kerry only beat the president by just under 5 percentage points last week. So much for The House That Harry Built -- it might have helped propel Sen. Reid to a record victory but the touted trifecta of the minimum wage initiative, the revitalized Democratic organization and the voter registration surge did not pay off Tuesday at the ballot box.
After a season engorged with breathless, hyperventilating news releases, both parties here showed immediately after the election that they either don't get it or are delusional.
The state Democrats put out a news release celebrating "'victories in state races," as if the legislative gains were a gleaming silver lining. But the cloud itself was so dark everywhere else that no one was going to even see the silvery light the Democrats tried to shine.
State GOP Chairman Earlene Forsythe was equally in denial as she boasted about how it is "gratifying to know that a small state like Nevada could play such an important role in the election of 2004." Actually, despite all the attention lavished on the state, Nevada did not matter -- the president didn't need the state to get to 270.
So whither the political dynamic now that Campaign '04 is about to slip into Campaign '06 with an irritation called Session '05 sandwiched in-between (and Session '04, too, if someone doesn't find Controller Kathy Augustine a job soon and get her to resign)? Let's take a look at the federal, state and local arenas:
Federal
The ineluctable truth about Tuesday's results is simple: Barring any major missteps, none of Nevada's members of Congress can be beaten. Rep. Shelley Berkley (66 percent) and Rep. Jim Gibbons (67 percent) did not have serious threats and never will -- the opposition has surrendered. But as much as the Democrats don't want to hear it, GOP Rep. Jon Porter's 14-point win indicates he, too, has that seat for as long as he wants it.
Porter's district does not have the daunting demographics of those of Berkley and Gibbons. But a closer look at the underlying trends in that area show that Republicans consistently have outperformed the Democrats there. And it is an evolving, suburban congressional district, which favors the GOP.
Tom Gallagher, the ex-Park Place CEO, may have been a flawed candidate. But it is a flawed premise to think that any Democrat can win here. Get used to the delegation, folks -- the trio is here to stay, at least until Jim Gibbons runs for governor and a Republican (Secretary of State Dean Heller, perhaps) will take his place.
Sen. Harry Reid's smashing victory (60 percent) over anti-gay marriage activist Richard Ziser doesn't reveal much. Reid won this race when he scared Gibbons out months ago. The only question was how much of a pest Ziser would be on Reid's path to a fourth term. Answer: Not much.
Reid's ascension to Tom Daschle's leadership job is historic -- never has a Nevadan led a major party and the new post arguably will make Reid the most powerful Democrat in Washington.
What he does with that clout greatly will influence how long the post-election cries for bipartisanship will last. Reid is equally comfortable as a partisan attack dog and bridge-building, nonpartisan conciliator. That is how a senator from a small state gets to become leader of the Senate Democrats.
How much will the new post help Nevada? It's hard to imagine Reid, who is a porkmeister extraordinaire, could bring home more bacon. But if he can increase the state's cholesterol level, he will. And this gives him more opportunity to deal directly with President Bush and his House counterparts. The president probably will forgive Reid his constant pounding on him over Yucca Mountain as the product of a local political imperative.
As for the dump, former President Bill Clinton almost had it right when he told the Sun just before the balloting that the election was "an up or down referendum on Yucca Mountain." Not really. Most Nevadans oppose the dump. But what the election showed -- again -- was that it is not a top of mind issue, despite some questionable exit polling that indicated it drove some new voters.
So much hype was given to Yucca Mountain in the media and especially in television ads -- Reid and Kerry and Gallagher all did ads on the issue -- that people knew what the score was. But they chose Bush anyhow, showing that Nevadans, like people everywhere, were more concerned with Iraq and the economy.
Yucca Mountain Fatigue Syndrome (YMFS) is no longer a theory. It's a fact, reaffirmed by the election. And the next step is also guaranteed: More talk of negotiating for benefits, which will set off a political paroxysm.
It also must be said one last time how pathetic the state's GOP elite were on this issue this cycle. For the first time in history, the state had leverage because of how important Nevada was to both campaigns. But no one even tried to extract a promise or a concession from President Bush. Instead they mouthed banalities about agreeing to disagree and how straight Bush had been with the state. They should all pay a political price for not playing carpe diem politics here -- but they will not because YMFS will save them.
State
Assembly Democrats could argue that they received a mandate from voters Tuesday as they took over three seats previously held by Republicans and none of their incumbents had a close race. And while some, especially Republicans, forecast doom for a Democratic caucus that unanimously voted for virtually every tax increase proposed in Sessions '03, they are now closer to a veto-proof majority (now that would have been useful 18 months ago).
The story here is the impact of get-out-the-vote efforts and the Democratic success in redistricting in 2001, which allowed the party to make its incumbents more secure. And the tax increase, which few people actually feel, was a non-event -- in fact, four of the so-called Fearless/Mean Fifteen of the Republican Assembly Caucus will not be returning. Two -- Knecht and Gustavson -- were booted by voters and two more -- David Brown and Walter Andonov -- chose not to run again. The GOP caucus will be decidedly less conservative as Bob Seale, who replaced Andonov, is a moderate and future caucus leader, and Scott Sibley showed no signs of being an ultra righty.
The real question is whether Minority Leader Lynn Hettrick will face a challenge after the disaster of Campaign '04. Hettrick and others had all but considered it a foregone conclusion that the Republicans would take control, a stupendous miscalculation. Will the caucus decide that Hettrick, who perfectly fits the most famous Durocherism about nice guys, should step aside for someone a little more politically calculating and savvy? Or is Hettrick the perfect man to reach out to the other side in what is being played, as on the national scene, as a new era of bipartisanship?
Speaker Richard Perkins, whom the Republicans foolishly tried to take out and didn't come close, may be careful what he wished for as he will have to herd three new cattle. Holding 26 together is slightly more difficult than holding 23 -- and he also has to choose new chairmen of key committees. Wendell Williams is gone from education. Mark Manendo will not chair government affairs again after the sexual harassment charges of Session '03.
Perkins will have to negotiate an interesting thicket, too -- working with Gov. Kenny Guinn, who will be looking to erase memories of the taxing session of '03, and setting a Democratic agenda that will pave the way for a planned gubernatorial run. He may be looking to teach the Republicans a lesson for their campaign hubris. But they will be waiting to pounce at every turn to help their all-but-announced contender for Guinn's job, Jim Gibbons.
Down the hall, Bill Raggio already has proved the post-Session '03 obituaries wrong and retained his scepter as majority leader and Finance Committee chairman. One reason is the loss of outspoken Southern Nevada power advocate Ann O'Connell and the other is the play-ball attitude of newcomer Bob Beers, who now is wearing a Great Conciliator mask as he accepts Raggio's brilliant offer of Finance vice-chairman. And Dennis Nolan, who once called for Raggio to step down when he was running against the Raggio-anointed Richard Bunker, now is the master's lieutenant as assistant majority leader.
Without O'Connell, the caucus rebels -- Barbara Cegavske, Sandra Tiffany and Mark Amodei -- will have less room to maneuver. And Raggio may have to spend less time fending off a coup and more time on legislating.
The Democrats will have slightly more leverage by increasing their numbers by one. Minority Leader Dina Titus also will have the Perkins problem -- trying to be leader while also attending to the politics of running for governor. Raggio will be looking to help Gibbons every chance he gets.
Titus actually has two new caucus members -- Steven Horsford replaced Joe Neal and Lee ousted Shaffer. Those freshmen will be vying for credibility and impact, with Horsford, a bright, rising star, having the edge over John Lee, who can barely hide his ambition.
It's unlikely the session will be as rancorous as last year as Guinn is likely to begin to pursue a legacy agenda. But with the governor's race already having begun and some budget problems sure to surface, smooth sailing also is hardly likely.
So is the message from the Clark County Commission results that growth is good, that developers reign supreme? Incumbent Lynette Boggs McDonald and Chip Maxfield were portrayed as shills for the building community and both retained their seats. Boggs McDonald's opponent, David Goldwater, actually ran a slow-growth campaign. Perhaps the story here is that anything will still go.
Not exactly. Goldwater, pounded from Day One by Boggs McDonald on a variety of personal issues, never was able to have the discussion. And Maxfield had enough money to overwhelm his aggressive but financially strapped challenger, Jerry Tao.
The lesson here is that it remains extraordinarily difficult to unseat a sitting county commissioner because of the access to Strip and developer money -- unless it is in a primary and unless the incumbent happens to have a federal indictment. Mary Kincaid-Chauncey never had a chance, it turns out, and Assemblyman Tom Collins was in the right place at the right time with the right demographics. North Las Vegas Councilwoman Shari Buck was a quality candidate and ran a fine campaign -- she just had the wrong party affiliation, as 10,000 more Democrats than Republicans are registered in the district.
The stench of Operation G-Sting will hang over the commission for years, though, especially because it will be a long time before anyone goes to trial and the FBI still seems to be looking into other avenues of corruption. Trying to navigate through the public distrust of local governments with all of the ethical issues that have been raised in the last few years will continue to be a challenge.
Collins is a bit of a wild card on the commission. He surely will be more outspoken than Kincaid-Chauncey and may not be as supportive of Manager Thom Reilly's attempt to change the culture of government benefits and salaries. But this is a board now where the locus of power is with Bruce Woodbury, Maxfield, Boggs McDonald and Rory Reid, who will continue to form a coalition on many issues. Reid, unlike the others, may be a Democrat, but he is a pragmatist, too.
Boggs McDonald, who is as ambitious as anyone, will be a force on the board now that she has won re-election. But some Democrats believe she will be ripe for the picking with a candidate without Goldwater's baggage. Maybe. But she certainly proved in this election that she is willing to do what it takes -- both in fund raising and campaign bludgeoning. I wouldn't bet against her.
So the status quo reigns for now in Clark County and Nevada. But for how long? Campaign '06 began the day after Campaign '04 ended and two years from now, we will have a new governor, probably one new congressman and probably half the constitutional officers will have either run for some other office or been forced from office. The County Commission may be changing, too, as yet another legislator, Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, covets Myrna Williams' seat.
And who knows? If Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman listens to his ego instead of his heart (and his wife), he may run for governor and win, meaning we will have a new mayor, too.
The prospects are deliciously intriguing. I can hardly wait.
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Nevada Appeal
November 7, 2004
Stop the Yucca nuke fight? No way
Editorial Board
Nevadans still don't want Yucca Mountain to be a nuclear-waste repository. But it's not an issue over which most of them decided to pick a president.
It's encouraging that people thought about a variety of issues and didn't let a single one, some might say a provincial one, make up their minds. Nevada voted for George W. Bush not because he approved the Yucca project but because most of them thought he would make the better president. We've yet to see a presidential candidate with whom we agreed on everything, and that was surely the case on Tuesday.
The discouraging part, of course, is that waste storage at Yucca Mountain will now proceed - perhaps even with, as Rep. Shelley Berkley speculated, a sense the election justified Bush's decision.
We don't think that's the case. A poll released Friday by Attorney General Brian Sandoval and the state's Agency for Nuclear Projects showed 77 percent of Nevadans oppose the Yucca project and 67 percent say the state shouldn't cut any deals.
The survey of 402 randomly selected state residents was conducted in October by Northwest Survey and Data Service, affiliated with the University of Oregon.
The timely post-election reminder should help keep the record straight on Nevadans' views of Yucca Mountain. But is popular opinion enough reason to pursue a costly legal and political battle?
No. The real reason to keep battling Yucca Mountain continues to be the illogical transference of 77,000 tons of radioactive waste from around the country to a site where safe disposal is scientifically questionable.
When Nevada wins its challenges, as it did this summer in a federal court decision confirming the Department of Energy wasn't using proper standards, it proves the importance of the watchdog role of the state's Nuclear Projects office.
In fact, the closer Yucca Mountain comes to reality, the more crucial it becomes that the fight go on.
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Charlotte Observer
November 07, 2004
Store nuclear waste in Nevada
S.C. plants aren't suited to handle disposal, creating a danger
An accident at the Oconee Nuclear Station shows the need for better storage and disposal of high-level nuclear waste.
The nation does not have a solution for disposing of high-level nuclear waste such as spent fuel rods from nuclear power plants. Without a better alternative, that spent fuel ends up stored at the plants.
The problem is that the plants are not designed for permanent storage of this high-level nuclear waste.
They aren't in the proper locations or designed for that purpose.
That can be seen in the incident at Oconee Nuclear Station. A valve was left open during a water transfer procedure, and 10,000 gallons of water were allowed to drain off the spent fuel rods into a storage tank.
It's not an incident that posed danger to anyone, but it points out that stockpiling this dangerous material at nuclear power plants is not a situation that this country should maintain.
Instead, the government should proceed with plans to open the disposal facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. This facility is designed for the permanent disposal of high-level nuclear waste. The material will be safe there for at least 10,000 years, much safer than it is in temporary holding containers at nuclear power plants.
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Reno Gazette-Journal
November 06, 2004
Nevadans still oppose Yucca dump
Despite voting for President Bush: Survey shows an increasing number back fight against nuclear repository.
Anjeanette Damon
Two days after Nevada voters turned down a presidential candidate who promised to kill the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository, state officials released a survey they say shows increasing opposition to the project and that support for the state´s costly fight against it remains high.
But proponents of the project say the results of the presidential election in the Silver State prove Nevadans are more willing to see the repository move forward and that politicians don´t have to take an anti-Yucca Mountain stance to win election here.
The survey, conducted from Oct. 7 to Oct. 18, wasn´t released until Thursday — four days before the state asks a legislative committee for another $1.75 million to continue fighting the project.
According to the poll 76.8 percent of respondents opposed the project, compared to 75 percent who opposed it in 2003. Sixty-seven percent of those polled supported continuing the fight instead of making a deal with the federal government for benefits.
The repository is designed to permanently store 77,000 tons of the nation´s most radioactive waste about 90 miles north of Las Vegas. The state has spent more than $100 million over the past two decades fighting the project.
“It is reassuring to know the public agrees with our aggressive approach to stopping the project,’ said Attorney General Brian Sandoval, who recently won a federal court decision that some say has killed the project.
Democratic presidential nominee U.S. Sen. John Kerry made Yucca Mountain a centerpiece to his Nevada campaign, vowing to end the project if he was elected. Two years into his first term, Bush approved Yucca Mountain as the storage site.
Former President Bill Clinton, in a speech three days before the election, said the presidential race offered Nevada voters their first chance to be heard on the project. A vote for Bush was a vote for the project, he said.
That´s all the ammunition project supporters need.
“It speaks for itself,’ said Bob List, a consultant to the Nuclear Energy Institute, which supports Yucca Mountain. “The Democrats characterized it as a referendum on the project and, lo and behold, George Bush carried the state by a substantial margin.’
Bush won Nevada by 2.5 percentage points this year, compared to his 3.5-point margin over Al Gore in 2000.
Sandoval, who has led the state´s recent legal fight against Yucca Mountain, also led Bush´s reelection campaign in Nevada.
He said the election results don´t undermine public support for fighting the repository.
“People realize this is a fight that is in the courts,’ Sandoval said. “It is important for the public to know how the people in Nevada are consistently against the project regardless of who is in the White House.’
In July, a federal court found the repository did not meet safety standards set by the National Academy of Sciences — a requirement set by Congress for the project to move forward.
To save the project, the Environmental Protection Agency must write new standards — a process that could take more than a decade — or Congress must change its requirement.
Either way, state officials say the project is “dead in the water.’
That hasn´t stopped them for asking for money, to fight whichever remedy the Bush administration pursues.
“We need to be ready,’ said Bob Loux, Nevada director of nuclear projects.
The nuclear industry remains steadfast in its resolve to see the project through.
“Everyone acknowledges the project opponents made a poster boy out of this project to try to win the election,’ List said. “The people of Nevada saw it as political posturing. So, I do believe that the likelihood of the project moving forward has certainly increased. And with the Republicans gaining members in both houses of Congress, there is a consensus in Washington that they need to get this done.’
John Hadder, Northern Nevada director for Citizen Alert, an anti-Yucca Mountain group, said the election results don´t mean Nevadans want to the see the repository in their state.
“There´s a lot of factors that go into how voters decide on a presidential candidate,’ he said. “Obviously Yucca Mountain was only one factor. Voters had a lot of other things on their minds.’
Project opponents also point to the U.S. Sen. Harry Reid´s landslide reelection victory. Reid, D-Nev., has been a strident Yucca Mountain opponent. And as Senate Minority Leader, a position he is widely considered to win, he´ll have even greater power to thwart the project, they said.
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Salt Lake Tribune
November 06, 2004
Nuke waste transport plan gets panned
By Patty Henetz
PORTLAND, Ore. - Western officials reacted skeptically Friday to a plan to train rural volunteer fire departments along routes where 40,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel could be shipped to Utah beginning as early as 2007.
Those emergency teams would be the first responders to any rail accident involving the nuclear fuel that a consortium of nuclear power companies wants to ship to the Skull Valley Goshute Reservation and store for as long as 40 years.
Private Fuel Storage chief John Parkyn promised the officials in Portland for a conference on nuclear waste that his consortium of eight nuclear power utilities would come into communities close to the time train shipments are scheduled to come through.
The training would involve "literally calling people together in regions and areas and putting on workshops for them," he said. PFS trainers also would leave copies of training material for them and offer phone numbers for follow-up questions.
But representatives of states affiliated with the Western Governors' Association, including a two-person team from the Utah Department of Environmental Quality, expressed doubts about Parkyn's presentation.
"PFS has absolutely no obligation to provide this training," said Connie Nakahara, a DEQ attorney. The state of Utah is the most adamant opponent of the PFS proposed waste storage site.
Because PFS has yet to identify rail routes from the reactors to the Skull Valley Goshute Reservation, where PFS plans interim above-ground storage for the spent fuel rods in concrete and steel casks, the affected communities can't do much in the way of advance planning, said Bob Halstead, a consultant for the state of Nevada on matters pertaining to the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear repository.
The PFS consortium in 1997 signed a lease with Goshute Tribal Chairman Leon Bear and now is seeking a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a temporary facility on the reservation 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. The 20-year license, renewable for another 20 years, could be issued as early as January.
The eight utilities have about 40 nuclear reactors between them. Parkyn said PFS ultimately would transport 4,000 casks of spent fuel to the 100-acre Skull Valley site. He said 200 casks would arrive each year, which would translate to about 40 trainloads. Their ultimate destination would be the permanent repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., about 90 miles north of Las Vegas.
The U.S. Department of Energy is working to open the Yucca Mountain site by 2010, a deadline seen as increasingly doubtful due to politics and economics. That has put PFS planning considerably ahead of Yucca Mountain, a
cause for worry among officials facing the likelihood that PFS shipments will pass through their states without the level of oversight shipments to Yucca Mountain would receive.
At the end of a two-day meeting of the high-level waste committee of the Western Interstate Energy Board, a subcommittee of the Western Governors' Association, Parkyn sketched PFS plans to build special rail cars to carry the waste casks.
While he didn't draw rail routes for the meeting attendees, Parkyn acknowledged that westbound trains would have to pass through Denver or southern Wyoming, prompting a warning from a Wyoming homeland security official.
"We are a pass-through state and it is a burden to us," said radiological services supervisor Scott Ramsay. "We expect the assistance to come from whoever is putting the burden on us."
Halstead said he appreciated Parkyn's detailed explanation of the custom rail cars PFS plans to build and use for its shipments, but complained that actual routing had been left too open-ended.
"There are parts of your plan that are elegant and beautiful and [the Energy Department] can learn a lot from it," he said. "There are other parts that scare the hell out of me."
Halstead also pointed out the Energy Department has said it wouldn't accept fuel at Yucca Mountain in welded casks, essentially leaving PFS without an exit strategy from Skull Valley unless it's to take the waste back to the utilities that sent it in the first place.
Parkyn said PFS will accept only welded casks in Utah.
"Fuel that's been shipped to Utah in a certified NRC container should be accepted at Yucca Mountain," he said.
The Western Governors' Association has a policy that no radioactive waste facility should be allowed to locate in any state without the express permission of the governor and Legislature. That policy is Utah's law.
Gov. Olene Walker and the Utah Legislature are opposed to high-level nuclear waste in Utah, as is Gov.-elect Jon Huntsman Jr.
A week ago, the state petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to hear its appeal of a lower court decision that overruled state laws blocking the transportation of spent fuel into Utah.
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Las Vegas SUN
November 05, 2004
Survey: Majority of Nevadans still support Yucca fight
By Benjamin Grove
<grove@lasvegassun.com>
Sun Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Nearly 73 percent of Nevadans believe the state should continue fighting Yucca Mountain, according to a new state-sponsored survey.
Almost three-quarters of those surveyed said the state should continue its long battle against Yucca rather than negotiate for benefits. In the latest phase of the fight, a federal court dealt the Energy Department project a setback when it ruled that a radiation protection standard did not match a National Academy of Sciences recommendation.
"With a federal court decision that can kill the project, Nevadans understand that the dump is far from a done deal," Nevada Attorney General Brian Sandoval said.
The survey also asked respondents if the Energy Department "can be trusted to live up to any benefits agreement the federal government would make with Nevada." Twenty-seven percent agreed and 69 percent disagreed.
"They are saying, 'We don't want this and we won't be fooled into cutting any deals,' " Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency executive director Bob Loux said.
The survey, conducted by Oregon-based Northwest Survey and Data Services, polled 402 randomly selected state residents between Oct. 7 and 18. The margin of error is 4.8 percent.
The same survey was conducted last year and this year's results show a slight increase in opposition to Yucca. This year nearly 77 percent of respondents said they would vote against Yucca Mountain if given a chance to vote, with 19 percent responding that they would vote for it.
In 2003, 76 percent said they would vote for it, 22 percent against.
The annual survey is more credible and consistent than others because the same core questions and sample size have been used for 15 years, Sandoval said.
A September Las Vegas Sun/Channel 8 Eyewitness News/KNPR Nevada Public Radio poll of 600 likely voters done by Belden Russonello & Stewart of Washington, D.C. showed 66 percent of Nevadans opposed to Yucca Mountain. But 57 percent of those polled said the candidates' positions on Yucca Mountain were not important to the way they would vote.
A September poll of 625 people, conducted by Washington-based Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc., for the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that 50 percent of Nevadans said the state should fight Yucca, and 46 percent said Nevada officials should negotiate for benefits.
In a poll conducted in May by the Nuclear Energy Institute, the leading pro-Yucca lobby group, 47 percent of 1,000 Nevada voters said they "strongly disapprove" of Yucca, down from 59 percent in 2002 and 54 percent in 2003 who strongly disapproved.
Former Gov. Bob List, now a paid consultant for NEI who has argued that the state should negotiate for benefits, questioned the scientific sample and the questions on the latest survey.
"The questions are a little bit cooked to get the results they want to see," List said.
Most Nevadans don't want Yucca if given a choice, but they are also increasingly coming to want to negotiate for benefits, List said. List pointed to surveys that indicate voters do not rank Yucca Mountain among the most important election issues.
"It has fallen down to the level of, 'By the way, I really don't want it here, but I think it's coming and it's time to negotiate for the upside,' " List said. "There is a sense of inevitability."
Election Day reflected that, List said. Yucca Mountain was an issue in the presidential election as the campaigns sparred over the issue in Nevada. President Bush approved Yucca Mountain. Sen. John Kerry said he would kill the project. Nevada voters gave Bush a 50-48 percent win in the state.
So the latest poll also doesn't appear to mesh with Election Day results. By a margin of 22,000 votes, Nevadans voted to return Bush to the White House just two years after he approved the project.
Several Nevada Democrats said this week that Nevada's vote for Bush makes it harder to argue on a national stage that the state opposes Yucca.
Observers said Nevadans don't base their votes solely on Yucca -- even though they don't want the nation's first underground repository for highly radioactive waste constructed 90 miles from Las Vegas. Nevadans voted more based on economic and security issues than on Yucca, Gov. Kenny Guinn, co-chairman of the Bush campaign in Nevada, said this week.
"We went the entire election without a terrorist attack," Guinn said. "People want security No. 1."
The Yucca issue has little to do with who is president, Sandoval spokesman Tom Sargent said, although Kerry had outlined several steps he would have taken to effectively kill the project. The matter will be settled by the courts, Sargent said.
"We feel very confident we will prevail in the courts," he said.
The survey results were compiled before the election, but Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency officials did not want the results lost in the din of the pre-election media frenzy, Loux said. The timing of the report's release was not politically motivated, said Loux, whose office answers to Guinn. The survey is typically released around the first of November, he said, although last year it was released Oct. 30.
"The election didn't have anything to do with it, per se," Loux said. "We wanted it to have some visibility."
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Las Vegas SUN
November 05, 2004
Editorial: Reid takes on top job
When Senate Democrats return to Washington they are expected to make Nevada's Sen. Harry Reid their new leader, a situation made possible when Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle lost his re-election bid in South Dakota. Reid, who isn't that well known outside of Nevada or beyond the nation's capital, will have his hands full. The Democrats lost four seats in the Senate, so they've been knocked off stride. Within the ranks of Senate Democrats there will be a reassessment to determine whether they and their party should take a more centrist course, as was charted by former President Bill Clinton, or take a more liberal path. Making matters more difficult, Democrats will have to face an emboldened Bush, who, unlike four years ago, actually won the popular vote this time.
Nevada's senior senator has an unassuming, low-key image, and he has shown that he can work with Republicans. But Reid also has demonstrated that he can be tough as nails when it comes to politics. U.S. senators and Nevada politicians -- from both parties -- can attest to how big a mistake it is to underestimate Reid's tenacity.
Reid will be more visible nationally, especially when he clashes with the Bush administration over policy differences in Washington, but this heightened profile also can create a perilous situation for him back home. While Reid won re-election this November in a landslide, we're certain that national Republicans already have painted a large bull's-eye on him and six years from now will try repeating the same tactics against Reid that helped lead to Daschle's defeat. Even though it was an unfair portrayal, Daschle's opponent was able to effectively make it seem as if Daschle was more interested in doing the bidding of liberal interest groups than he was in serving the needs of South Dakotans.
Nevada already has seen the benefits of having Reid as the assistant minority leader -- getting more federal funding for Nevada, for starters -- and that influence won't wane once he becomes the top Democrat in the Senate. Reid's leadership role also has helped Nevada in slowing down the federal government's efforts to build a nuclear waste dump in Nevada, but it's important to remember that one man in Congress can't do it all. Reid's influence couldn't stop Bush's single-minded determination in 2002 to get Congress to move forward with the Yucca Mountain project.
Bush phoned Reid on Wednesday, a measure of the Nevada senator's increasing stature. We hope that Bush will work with Democratic leaders as he pushes his agenda, and that his call for unity isn't a hollow refrain of what we heard from him four years ago. If Bush tries to steamroll a right-wing agenda through Congress, a course that would only further deepen the divisions in this country, it will be up to Reid and other Democrats to put a stop to it. Based on our many years of watching Reid at work, we're confident that he is more than ready to be the Senate's Democratic leader.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
November 05, 2004
Yucca project polls differ
Newest survey shows repository opposition up to 77 percent
By Keith Rogers
Review-Journal
Opposition among Nevadans to the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository increased slightly over the past year to 77 percent, while nearly as many people believe the state should continue to fight the project, an annual poll by the Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency has shown.
"I think it means that despite some other polls to the contrary, that Nevadans are still opposed to Yucca Mountain and they want the state to do everything it can to defeat it," said Bob Loux, the agency's executive director.
The poll released Thursday asked: "Would you vote for or against creating a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain?" Roughly 77 percent of those surveyed said they would vote against it, compared with about 75 percent who last year said they would vote against the project.
Respondents also were asked if the state should continue to do all it can to oppose the repository even if that means turning down benefits that might be offered by the federal government? About 73 percent said the state should continue its opposition.
A similar question in last year's poll found a lesser number, 65 percent, favored the state's continued opposition to the project.
Northwest Survey and Data Services, a Eugene, Ore., firm affiliated with the University of Oregon, conducted the survey of 402 randomly selected Nevadans from Oct. 7 to Oct. 18. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.8 percent.
The new poll results differ from those in a September poll conducted for the Review-Journal by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research Inc. of Washington, D.C. That poll of 625 registered voters found a growing number of Nevadans believe the state should accept the repository and try to deal for benefits in return.
About 50 percent said in September that Nevada should fight the project, while 46 percent said the state should deal. Those results compared to 54 percent who preferred to fight and 39 percent who favored a deal in a similar poll in July.
Loux said the difference in the results between the state's poll and the Review-Journal poll is "we don't start our survey saying the Yucca Mountain repository is a done deal. When you preface the question by telling them it's a done deal, that skews their responses," he said.
This year's poll for the Nuclear Projects Agency tried to gauge how much respondents know about the Yucca Mountain issue by asking if they were aware an appeals court this summer had rejected radiation protection standards for the planned repository.
Only 36 percent said they were aware of the court decision while 60 percent were not.
A poll in June conducted for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the lobbying arm of the nuclear power industry and a staunch supporter of the planned repository, found that Nevadans since last year have warmed up slightly to the project and a large majority still feel a repository will be built.
Robert List, a consultant for the institute and a former Nevada governor, criticized the Nuclear Projects Agency poll, saying it is designed to get the answer the state wants.
"What most feel is that we should have a strategy to continue to resist the project but start planning for the probability it will occur and capture benefits from it if the government goes forward with their plan," List said.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
November 05, 2004
Yucca Mountain Project: Nuclear industry to forge ahead
Bush's re-election seen as green light for project by some; others vow to battle on
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Emboldened by election results, the nuclear industry and supportive lawmakers are planning a new charge to increase spending and fix financial problems plaguing the Yucca Mountain Project, executives and legislators said.
They will try to revitalize the nuclear waste program in Congress over the protests of Nevada leaders who said they will continue to fight despite an apparent setback this week.
"From my perspective the battle continues," said Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev. "I don't think there would be anything different now than from the past 20 years."
John Kane, a senior vice president of the Nuclear Energy Institute, said Thursday that Nevada leaders should re-examine their opposition to Yucca Mountain in light of President Bush winning the state on Election Day even after Democrats made the proposed nuclear waste repository a major issue.
"It shows back here that the people of Nevada are in a different place from where their elected leaders are," said Kane, the institute's head of government affairs.
"I think the right thing for Nevadans now is not to keep spending money fighting this thing," Kane said. "State budgets are tight out there and money can be better applied to making sure (Yucca) is done correctly" and to seek compensation for hosting the project.
Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said nuclear industry officials "are getting some radiation poisoning, it's addling their minds a little bit. We are not giving up and they ought not interpret that vote for Bush as a mandate to go forward with Yucca Mountain."
The Yucca Mountain political landscape is shifting to account for Bush's re-election and Republican net additions to the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives. Most of the new lawmakers are expected to favor nuclear power expansion and waste disposal in Nevada, officials said in interviews this week.
The new equation also takes into account the expected promotion for Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the Yucca project's most powerful critic, to become Senate minority leader.
Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, said this week that congressional leaders who want to keep the repository program on track are exploring possible ways to restore a deep budget during the upcoming post-election lame-duck session.
"Whether that is achievable or not, I don't know," said Hobson, who heads a House energy subcommittee.
The Bush administration requested $880 million for the repository this year. Congress so far has allocated only $131 million and is deadlocked over a spending bill for Yucca Mountain and other energy programs.
"In the lame duck session, a lot of the difficulties we are seeing are going to be straightened out," Kane predicted.
Hobson also said he expects the Bush administration next year will try again to pass a bill to revamp Yucca Mountain accounting rules to allow the Energy Department easier access to money sitting in an industry fund.
With the Senate now counting 55 Republicans, "I would almost bet they will take a run at that," Hobson said.
Less certain, Kane said, is whether Congress will seek to overturn the damaging court ruling from this summer that voided a radiation safety requirement for the repository.
More Republicans in Congress doesn't necessarily mean more support for Yucca Mountain, according to Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev.
Ensign said new GOP senators such as Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Tom Coburn of Oklahoma are fiscal conservatives who probably will oppose big spending increases and changes to accounting rules that will allow more money to flow to the nuclear waste program.
Environmental groups will continue to count on Reid to block Yucca Mountain bills, said Michele Boyd, legislative director for energy programs at the Public Citizen watchdog organization.
The nuclear industry "most likely believes they have the upper hand in the Congress and the Senate now, but I still believe there will be a fight," Boyd said.
But with Reid likely to become a Senate leader, some are questioning whether he will have the time and energy to keep bird-dogging the Yucca issue. His new demanding job also will carry broad responsibilities.
"Before, he was kind of able to do his own thing," Hobson said. "Now when he is the leader, does he have the responsibility to look at his entire caucus more as to what is the best interest of them totally?"
Reid was in Searchlight on Thursday and was not available. His spokeswoman Tessa Hafen said Reid "still thinks Yucca is as bad an idea as it ever was. But the outcome of the election obviously makes his job much harder. Reid will work just as hard to cut the budget."
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Reno Gazette-Journal
November 04, 2004
Editorial: Reid has a chance to guide rebirth of Democratic Party
Twenty-four hours after the Republican Party held onto the White House and improved their majorities in both the House and Senate, it appeared all but certain that the task of leading the loyal opposition would fall to a conservative Democrat from one of the “red’ states, Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada.
Reid, most recently the Senate´s minority whip, the party´s No. 2 spot, easily won his fourth term in the Senate on Tuesday. With the defeat of the minority leader, Sen. Tom Daschle of South Dakota, and Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd´s announcement that he wouldn´t seek the job, Reid seemed a shoo-in for the party´s top job.
That´s quite a coup for Reid and a first for the state. It means that this small state will have more clout in the Congress, and in the Democratic Party, than it has ever had before. It certainly will make it harder for the administration to move ahead with the plan to move nuclear power plant waste to Yucca Mountain (though the election results suggested that Yucca Mountain isn´t nearly as important an issue to Nevadans as Reid and other Democrats hoped it would be).
It´s also a unique opportunity for Reid to try to guide the resurgence of a party in decline. To succeed, however, the Democratic Party cannot be satisfied to be the anti-Republicans in the Senate. Americans are sick of partisan infighting, and they will blame the party that´s out of power for the bickering they see.
That means that the filibuster — an option still available to Democrats, who will have 45 votes, five more than they need to prevent cloture — will have to be used sparingly and with great discretion. But it also means that Democrats will need a positive program for balancing the budget, for supporting U.S. efforts in the Middle East, for tax reform, intelligence reform and maybe even campaign-finance reform.
Nevadans have demonstrated faith in Reid for a long time now, and it appears that Senate Democrats have faith in him, too. The coming session will show whether that faith was deserved.
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Pahrump Valley Times
November 5, 2004
Yucca is OK
This past month I took the Yucca Mountain tour. I was amazed by the data after touring the site, listening to explanations and answers to questions, and later reading the available materials.
In the U.S. over the past 30 years more than 2,700 shipments covering 1.6 million miles have been made safely without radioactive releases, and worldwide more than 70,000 metric tons have been shipped safely.
France, with over 70 percent of its electricity produced from nuclear fuel, ships all waste out of the country by truck (or) train.
I was surprised to learn that all of our wastes are converted to solid form and can never leak, cannot explode, are not flammable, and it is physically impossible to make them explode in a chain reaction. The packaging is expensive but effective.
On the tour I also learned that the access tunnels will not be permanently sealed but merely blocked with the rock taken out when constructing them. The extremely durable packages of spent fuel assemblies will be stored inside tunnels, which can be accessed if required. This can be important as I learned elsewhere that ongoing research could, in maybe several hundred years, use the waste to economically produce electricity. Accelerated research could step this up.
What would be our benefits? With no negotiations, possibly none. Otherwise we could push for nearby federal road construction and maintenance, sidings on the railroad where cattle cars can be added on the return trip from Yucca and possibly more. Looking out from Yucca there is beautiful, pristine land to the northeast. How about a federal park with protected and improved flora and fauna, with paved roads to viewing points that have rest facilities and camp sites?
What I learned made me feel better, since I am disturbed when an American president is continually called a liar for proceeding with Yucca upon the advice of conventional scientists rather than "our" scientists, who did not even inform us about the nuclear waste shipping record. Also, I actually believed the waste would be dumped in the ground and forgotten about.
Anthony A. Wirtz
Boulder City
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Pahrump Valley Times
November 5, 2004
What repository?
I think the media's infatuation with Yucca Mountain and elections is interesting and baffling. According to polls, Yucca Mountain is a low priority with only 3-5 percent considering it a very important issue. Myself and apparently a lot of others are sick and tired of a few people attempting to use the issue for political gain.
Whoever is writing the political ads opposing the project must be from out of state as the ads are clearly out of touch with the issues that are truly important to the state. The ads and comments concerning Yucca Mountain are factually incorrect; they provide misleading information concerning the number of shipments that will take place because there will only be a handful each week.
Most importantly, the ads fail to communicate that the shipments won't come anywhere near Las Vegas and that Yucca Mountain is 90 miles away.
I'll be glad when Nov. 2 comes and goes and the media buyers at the local ad agencies can place ads that aren't political and misleading.
Rebecca Wamsley
Las Vegas
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Washington Times
November 05, 2004
Report: Terrorists prowling Yucca site?
Las Vegas, NV, Nov. 5 (UPI) -- Terrorists may have been nosing around the Web site for the Yucca Mountain project, possibly planning for a raid on radioactive waste shipments.
KLAS-TV, Las Vegas, said some experts suspect al-Qaida or some other terrorist group has been exploring the possibility of someday intercepting such a shipment and either destroying it or stealing the material for use in a radioactive dirty bomb.
KLAS said a volunteer group that monitors radical Islamic Internet activity noticed a Hamas Web site included a link to the State of Nevada's site, which in turn led to a report on Yucca Mountain, the location of a planned national repository for nuclear waste.
One of the volunteers said it was concluded the site's description of the elaborate safety measures that would surround shipments of waste was being perused.
KLAS said federal Homeland Security officials asked the state to remove the Yucca report; however, state officials denied such a request had been made.
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Tri-City Herald
November 05, 2004
Nuclear waste gridlock looms, officials warn
Annette Cary
PORTLAND -- Concerned that national plans will not move forward to dispose of nuclear weapons waste, the chairmen of the advisory boards for nine Department of Energy nuclear sites have drafted a joint letter calling for a national forum.
"We're staring gridlock in the face," Todd Martin, chairman of the Hanford Advisory Board, said Thursday as the board met in Portland.
DOE's plan for cleaning up Hanford and other sites with radioactive waste left from the Cold War buildup of the nation's arsenal of nuclear weapons is to ship waste to various sites around the nation for treatment or permanent disposal.
But DOE is facing legal issues, including attempts by Washington voters to block waste from being imported to Hanford, and attempts by Nevada to prevent Yucca Mountain from becoming the nation's high-level waste repository. In addition, the chairmen have questions about waste that is orphaned and pre-1970s waste for which DOE does not have a plan, they wrote in a letter to be sent to Paul Golan, DOE's acting assistant secretary for environmental management.
"These and other disposition challenges raise concerns of potential gridlock resulting in skyrocketing costs and completion delays throughout the DOE system," the chairmen wrote.
The letter calls for a national forum to produce "technically sound, fiscally responsible, politically acceptable, sustainable and comprehensive solutions to DOE's system-wide waste and material disposition challenges."
The latest blow to DOE's national plan was Tuesday's passage of Initiative 297, which would block DOE from sending low-level waste, some mixed with chemicals, to Hanford until waste generated there during the past production of plutonium is cleaned up.
The initiative, which passed in every county except Benton, takes effect in 30 days, but is expected to face legal challenges.
Most of the other sites have been watching the initiative, concerned about what will become of their waste that is planned to go to Hanford, Martin said.
DOE has plans to ship about 5,800 truckloads of waste from other sites to Hanford. Heart of America Northwest, a Hanford watchdog group, believes that number is low.
Much of the waste would be permanently buried in Hanford landfills, under DOE's plan. Other waste would be treated at Hanford and sent elsewhere.
That includes some transuranic waste, usually debris contaminated with plutonium, that would be treated and packaged at Hanford, then sent on to the federal repository for transuranic waste in the New Mexico desert, according to the DOE plan.
Other sites are concerned not only that their waste will not be sent to Hanford for burial, but that they will be left with no treatment capabilities if the waste cannot be treated at Hanford, Martin said.
In turn, DOE has planned to send Hanford's most radioactive waste elsewhere. Spent fuel and high-level radioactive and chemical waste now in huge underground tanks would be sent to Yucca Mountain. Plutonium-contaminated waste is already being sent to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) for transuranic waste in New Mexico.
If no waste is sent to Hanford, that could mean far more waste would be sent to the Nevada Test Site. Like Hanford, it is designated by DOE to accept low-level radioactive waste and low-level waste mixed with chemicals.
The Nevada Test Site is already threatening to sue if waste from Fernald, Ohio, which had a uranium plant, is sent there, Martin said. That site is supposed to close in two years.
Nevada also is fighting Yucca Mountain's designation as the nation's high-level waste repository.
Advisory board chairmen are concerned it may never open.
A survey to be released today by the Nevada Office of the Governor found 77 percent of Nevadans opposed to using Yucca Mountain for disposing of nuclear waste. That's up from 65 percent in 2003.
In September the state sued to challenge DOE's transportation plan that it believes would allow many of the waste shipments to Yucca Mountain to travel through Las Vegas. In addition, in July it won a U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that a standard that considered whether waste would be safe at Yucca Mountain for 10,000 years was inadequate.
Also troubling to the chairmen of the advisory boards is the large amount of transuranic waste at many sites that was generated before the 1970s. In the 1970s, the Atomic Energy Commission ruled that waste contaminated with certain levels of plutonium, or transuranic waste, must be buried in a deep geological repository. WIPP was later made the repository.
But transuranic waste produced before the '70s does not have a clear path for disposal. At Hanford, which produced two-thirds of its plutonium before the '70s, the waste was buried. DOE is working on a plan for that waste that's legally required to be submitted to the Washington state Department of Ecology before the end of the year.
But advisory board chairmen were concerned enough about "the lack of a disposition path for pre-1970 transuranic waste" to name it in their letter.
DOE and nuclear watchdogs disagree about whether WIPP is large enough, even if it were expanded, to take all of the nation's pre-1970s transuranic waste in addition to the newer transuranic waste that's being sent there now.
Martin told the Hanford Advisory Board on Thursday that he had signed the letter, which was drafted in October, on the board's behalf. There was no objection.
A few of the boards for other sites have not signed the letter because they have not met since the letter was drafted, but all are expected to sign, Martin said. They include the Fernald, Idaho, Nevada, Northern New Mexico, Oak Ridge, Paducah, Rocky Flats and Savannah River sites.
The letter asks for DOE to sponsor a national forum organized by an independent group by the end of 2005. The forum should include broad participation by DOE, the National Governors Association, legal regulators of the sites such as the Environmental Protection Agency, tribes, site advisory boards and public interest groups and other members of the public, the letter said.
"Ultimately, the forum should result in principles, priority-setting criteria and recommendations to guide commonsense solutions to current and future waste disposition challenges," the letter said.
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WKYT
November 05, 2004
Nuclear advisory boards raise concerns with waste disposal plans
PORTLAND, Ore. -- The chairmen of the advisory boards for nine nuclear sites operated by the U.S. Department of Energy have drafted a joint letter calling for a national forum on nuclear waste disposal, concerned that the federal government's plans have stalled.
The letter comes as the Energy Department faces challenges to its plans for disposing of waste from production of the country's Cold War-era nuclear weapons arsenal.
The latest blow to the department's plans was passage of Initiative 297 in Washington state Tuesday, which bars the agency from shipping any nuclear waste to south-central Washington's Hanford site until all the existing waste there is cleaned up.
The Energy Department also faces legal challenges to its proposed high-level nuclear waste repository in Nevada, known as Yucca Mountain.
The letter calls for a national forum to produce "technically sound, fiscally responsible, politically acceptable, sustainable and comprehensive solutions to DOE's systemwide waste and material disposition challenges."
The letter asks the agency to sponsor a national forum by the end of 2005 that includes broad participation by the National Governors Association, legal regulators of the sites, tribes, advisory boards, public interest groups and members of the public.
The letter to Paul Golan, the Energy Department's acting assistant secretary for environmental management, was drafted in October. Todd Martin, chairman of the Hanford Advisory Board, told board members Thursday he had signed it on the board's behalf.
Advisory boards for nuclear sites in Idaho, Nevada, New Mexico, Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Colorado and South Carolina also are expected to sign.
The 586-square-mile Hanford reservation in south-central Washington was created in World War II as part of the top-secret Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb. It remains the most contaminated site in the nation, with cleanup costs expected to total $50 billion to $60 billion.
The Energy Department chose Hanford to dispose of some mildly radioactive waste and mixed low-level waste, which is laced with chemicals.
The site also would serve as a packaging center for some transuranic waste _ plutonium-contaminated rags, tools and other discarded items _ before it is shipped elsewhere for long-term disposal. Transuranic waste is highly radioactive and can take thousands of years or more to decay to safe levels.
In turn, the Energy Department has planned to send Hanford's most radioactive waste elsewhere.
Spent fuel and highly radioactive and chemical waste now in huge underground tanks would be sent to Nevada's Yucca Mountain. Plutonium-contaminated waste is already being sent to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico.
Initiative 297 takes effect in 30 days, but it is expected to face legal challenges. The measure passed in every county except Benton County, where the Hanford site is located.
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KLAS
November 04, 2004
The Political Future Of Yucca Mountain
Brian Allen
The changing political winds in Washington may partially turn the tide against the Yucca Mountain Repository. The Bush Administration supports a plan to store nuclear waste 90 miles north of Las Vegas. But a twist of fate may give Nevada more power to fight the project.
John Kerry said if he was elected president he would stop Yucca Mountain in its tracks. But now that President Bush has won reelection, what does that mean for the project? It may not be the smooth road you would envision.
It's too early to say if John Kerry winning Clark County in Tuesday's election can be connected to Yucca Mountain. Former Nevada Governor Bob List doesn't think so. "It was important to some people but clearly not an issue that had overriding significance in how they cast their votes."
List supports the project. So does President Bush, claiming the nation's nuclear waste must be stored in one area for homeland security. "The process is going to go forward on a pretty rapid pace."
List tells Eyewitness News he's recently discussed the project with the White House, so has Peggy Maze Johnson. "I just got a letter Monday from the White House." Johnson heads up the anti-Yucca organization Citizens Alert, and she is fighting the administration tooth and nail. "There is no sound science the mountain is not safe."
The Department of Energy believes the mountain is safe, but acknowledged in August more safety questions needed answering. President Bush wants to push ahead. It may be Harry Reid who slows him down. "I think that he's going to be able to be even more effective in holding back Yucca Mountain," Johnson said.
On Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota lost reelection. The front-runner to replace him is Harry Reid. As a senate leader, Reid could seriously diminish federal funding for the project.
"Harry has never been able to muster a majority of the senate to stop the project." Former Governor List likes Harry Reid, but questions how you slam the brakes on a federal project 24 years in the making. "You don't. You really can't."
The Department of Energy declined to comment for this story. A spokeswoman for Senator Reid acknowledges the challenge Yucca Mountain presents. In the meantime, the fight continues -- state attorneys will argue in Washington this January that the Department of Energy is withholding money meant to help the state plan for the repository.
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Las Vegas SUN
November 04, 2004
GOP: Yucca not a strong enough issue
How president won Nevada is up for debate
By Cy Ryan <cy@lasvegassun.com>
and Benjamin Grove <grove@lasvegassun.com>
Sun Capital Bureau
As the dust started to settle on the day after the election, the state's Republican leadership said it was obvious to them why President Bush won Nevada despite intense Democratic campaigning here and despite Bush's support for turning Yucca Mountain into the nation's nuclear waste dump.
In Nevada John Kerry campaigned largely on his opposition to the Yucca Mountain project, but that issue was less important to most Nevadans than security and the economy, said Gov. Kenny Guinn, co-chairman of the Bush campaign in Nevada, and Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev.
"When you look at the polls, Yucca Mountain was way, way low," Gibbons said.
Guinn said that based on polls and his own contacts, education issues and Yucca Mountain, which is 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, were less important to most voters than their safety and jobs. A poll he saw showed only 2 percent to 2.5 percent of the people would change their votes based on the Yucca issue.
Gibbons also said the Democrats' effort to tie the Yucca Mountain project to President Bush didn't work.
But Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., doesn't necessarily buy the argument that the Democrats in Nevada harped on Yucca too much.
"Without Yucca Mountain, it wouldn't have been a close race in Nevada," Ensign said, adding that it might have a been a seven- to 10-point lead for Bush without Yucca. "You had a Massachusetts liberal running in Nevada. Those two don't match up."
David Cherry, spokesman for one of Kerry's point people in Southern Nevada, Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said the media in some ways created a false perception that the Democrats were only talking about Yucca.
"We thought it was the one thing we needed to talk about first," but it was hardly the only issue Democrats were touting, Cherry said.
There was a lot of pent-up frustration among Democrats after years of trying to get answers from Bush about Yucca, Cherry said. Bush still never took questions from Nevada media about the subject, even as Kerry was offering detailed plans about how he would try to kill the project, he said.
There was a clear difference between Bush and Kerry on the issue, but it apparently wasn't enough to galvanize the state behind Kerry during the campaign, Cherry said.
"Maybe people felt like they were beating their head against the wall," Cherry said.
Another difference between the two sides was that the Republican campaign for the White House spent more money in Nevada, Guinn said. He said he has seen figures indicating that the two parties spent a combined total of $25 million trying to win Nevada's five electoral votes. He said the Democrats spent $1.8 million per electoral vote and the Republicans spent $3.1 million for each electoral vote.
But Guinn and Gibbons said that more important was the fact that Nevadans have remained safe from terrorist attacks and have enjoyed a strong economy.
"I've said all along we're going for Bush based on the fact we have been safe," Guinn said. "We went the entire election without a terrorist attack. People want security No. 1."
Gibbons said, "I think voters of Nevada weighed who was going to be the best president on national security and the economy."
He noted that Nevada has been mentioned on occasion as a possible target for terrorists. He said voters were looking for a strong leader who would "go on the offensive when it comes to terrorists."
The governor said the second most important issue "in all my contacts and in polls is the economy, and that relates to jobs. Nevada led the nation in job creation at a good pace. We are second in the nation in producing jobs at a livable wage."
Guinn said, "All of us want a really good job, but if it's not safe what does a good job mean to you?" he said.
Gibbons said the economy in Nevada has turned around since 9/11 and the state has the lowest unemployment rate in the nation. "The mining industry is doing well. Things are looking up for Nevada."
But Gibbons said he figures that the deciding factor for many voters was that they asked themselves: "Why change leaders in the middle of a war?"
Assembly Minority Leader Lynn Hettrick, R-Gardnerville, likewise said that while nobody likes the war in Iraq, they don't want their soldiers to have died in vain.
"We've got to win," he said and added "People felt he (Bush) was the guy who was going to do it." He said the voters felt Bush had the "resolve to get the job done."
Gibbons also said education was a strong issue. He said Bush has followed through with his promises on education and, "He (Bush) was rewarded with a great vote of support."
Bush defeated Al Gore 49.4 percent to 46.6 percent to take Nevada's electoral votes four years ago. He beat Kerry 50 percent to 47.4 percent on Tuesday.
Republicans had a 4,400 vote margin in registered voters but Bush accumulated a 21,567 vote lead over Kerry. Four years ago, Bush beat Gore by 21,597.
"This president knows we were there for him," Gibbons said. "We have had a close relationship. Now it will be even closer than before. We worked hard and he recognized the effort we put out for his election."
The numerous campaign visits by Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney allowed Nevadans "from both parties get to know them on a personal basis," Guinn said.
For his part the governor said he has a personal relationship with all of the Cabinet members and they have been working to solve some of the water and land problems.
Gibbons said his own relationship with the Bush administration probably won't lead to a presidential appointment, however. He said he is not interested in that because he wants to remain in the House.
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Las Vegas SUN
November 04, 2004
Bush win means renewed support for Yucca dump
By Suzanne Struglinski
<suzanne@lasvegassun.com>
Sun Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Four more years of a Bush administration means renewed support for a high-level nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, supporters and critics of the project say.
During his re-election campaign, President Bush reiterated his promise to base the government's decision to store nuclear waste at Yucca, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, on "sound science" and for the courts to determine its fate, while Democratic candidate John Kerry consistently told Nevada he would stop the project.
Bush's return to the White House eliminates some uncertainty about the project's future, but many question remain.
"At least we know now what to expect," said Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects. "Nothing really changes for Yucca Mountain."
The administration has been pushing the Yucca project forward, with an optimistic goal of opening the repository by 2010. Bush approved the project in 2002 and his Energy Department has been working feverishly to meet a self-imposed Dec. 30 deadline to submit the project's license application, despite Nevada's strong objections to the government storing 77,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel in the state.
"It shows there will be support for the program, but I don't think the other problems have changed," said Brian O'Connell, nuclear waste program office director for the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, which supports the Yucca program. "It gives a continued sign of support for the project. I mean, it's obvious."
Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said Nevada's votes for Bush could make her job harder in the House because the people voted against their own interests of stopping the project. She said before Tuesday she would be able to tell colleagues that 83 percent of the state was against the government moving waste there, but she can't say that anymore.
"This election has limited our options dramatically," Berkley said. "We have no friends in this administration."
Bush has no reason to hold back on pushing his energy policy, including plans for beginning Yucca construction, and for developing new nuclear plants in the United States, Berkley's spokesman David Cherry said.
It's also possible Bush could push for what amounts to a temporary storage site at the Yucca surface, until the underground repository is completed, Cherry said. Congress in past sessions has rejected interim storage.
Terry Freese, director of legislative programs at the Nuclear Energy Institute, said with Bush back in the White House there will be less interest in looking for near-term solution for interim storage of nuclear waste, "because Yucca is not kicked four or eight years down the road."
He said he did not think it was likely there would be any discussion of storing nuclear waste anywhere but Yucca. He said he is confident other concerns on the program will be dealt with, but acknowledged the exact schedule of the program "remains to be seen."
Nevada officials noted that Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., is likely to become Senate Democratic leader, a step up from his current position as minority whip, the No. 2 Democrat. That puts Reid in an even better position to fight Yucca issues. He also sits on the committee that sets the Yucca budget.
O'Connell said Reid's new position will strengthen his power with an administration that says it want to cooperate, but he does not think it will make anything easier.
But regardless of Bush's win and the adminstration's support for the project, Yucca Mountain faces significant uncertainties, including the project budget, questions about radiation protection standards and licensing setbacks.
Energy Department spokesman Joe Davis said the administration's policy has not changed on the project, but said the department still needs to get money from Congress to continue its work.
The Energy Department requested $880 million for the current fiscal year. House appropriators have approved only $131 million for the project, and the defense authorization bill, signed into law last Thursday, only allocated $120 million. The authorization bill allows Congress to spend money on a program while the appropriations bill actually puts money into the account.
The Senate has not passed any portion of the Yucca budget, so negotiations still have to take place.
Davis said the department also will have to abide what the Environmental Protection Agency decides to do with new radiation standards. A federal court overturned the current standards for how long the repository must keep radiation from escaping into the environment.
Davis said the department has not taken a position on whether Congress should change the law regarding the standards, sidestepping action by the EPA. "That's up to Congress," he said.
Meanwhile, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has a meeting tentatively scheduled next week to vote on the Energy Department's appeal of the licensing board's decision to invalidate its document database.
The commission licensing board decided Aug. 31 that the Energy Department did not meet commission rules when it said it made all of the Yucca project documents available on June 30.
The department has to make all its documents available six months before it turned in its license application under commission rules.
Attorney Joe Egan, who the state hired to work on Yucca issues, said the department's decision to move forward with the documents and the whole license application process depends on how it decides to handle the radiation standard.
Egan said it would be a waste of taxpayer dollars, including money spent by Nevada, to continue to pursue a license application that may not be reviewable by the commission.
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Las Vegas SUN
November 04, 2004
Bush win gives boost to plan for nuclear waste dump in Nevada
By Ken Ritter
Associated Press
LAS VEGAS (AP) - Opponents of a national nuclear waste dump in Nevada lost their chance to put an ally in the White House with President Bush's defeat of Democratic Sen. John Kerry.
"If you went into the polls and your top priority was, 'I do not want nuclear waste in Nevada,' you would have had to vote for Kerry," said Judy Treichel, a longtime foe of the Yucca Mountain project. "Apparently there were other issues that people thought were more important."
Bush carried Nevada by 2 percentage points after facing heavy Democratic criticism that he reneged on a 2000 campaign pledge when he approved the plan to entomb 77,000 tons of the nation's most radioactive waste 90 miles from Las Vegas.
Opinions differed on whether he was hurt by the criticism that he broke a promise to let "sound science" dictate the repository's fate when he approved the site with 293 scientific questions left unanswered.
During four trips to Nevada, Bush defended his 2002 decision and accused Kerry of turning the issue into "a political poker chip."
Kerry bluntly promised that Yucca Mountain would not open on his watch. Top Democrats including former President Bill Clinton traveled to Nevada and cast the race a referendum on the project.
"It turned out the wrong way for them," said John Kane, senior vice president of governmental affairs at the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry lobbyist in Washington, D.C.
"We believe the people of Nevada realize this project is going to happen, and, in fact, are focused on other issues," Kane said.
In a statewide exit poll conducted for The Associated Press and TV networks, voters cited terrorism, Iraq and moral values as the top campaign issues.
But 66 percent also called Yucca Mountain a somewhat or very important factor in their vote for president.
Kerry drew 73 percent of those who called it "very important." But Bush got most of those who saw it as less important or not an issue at all.
"I guess the influence wasn't as big as I thought it would be," said Treichel, executive director of the Nuclear Waste Task Force in Las Vegas. "I guess I have to get over gnashing my teeth and being upset."
Nevada is pressing lawsuits, hoping to stop the government from moving highly radioactive waste from commercial and military sites in 39 states to Yucca Mountain beginning in 2010.
The state's fight might get a boost if Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. wins a bid to become the next Senate minority leader as expected.
"Yucca is as bad an idea today as it was yesterday or before the election," Reid spokeswoman Tessa Hafen said. "But Sen. Reid's job is a lot harder now, with how the election turned out."
Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said she expected the Bush administration would seize on the Election Day results as justification for the Yucca Mountain project.
She cited an October survey done for the Nevada's anti-Yucca state Agency for Nuclear Projects that said three-fourths of Nevadans oppose the project.
"It's unfortunate that we sent this mixed message back to Washington," Berkley said. "I believe George Bush will interpret it as a mandate and do whatever he wants."
On the Net:
Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects: http://www.state.nv.us/nucwaste
Nuclear Regulatory Commission: http://www.nrc.gov
Yucca Mountain project: http://www.ymp.gov
Nuclear Energy Institute: http://www.nei.org
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Las Vegas SUN
November 04, 2004
New Leader of Senate Democrats Is Steady
By Mark Sherman
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) -
Sen. Harry Reid regulated gambling in Nevada when organized crime ran some casinos, and he lived to tell about it. His steely resolve in a sometimes dangerous job could come in handy as the new Democratic leader in a more conservative Senate.
The soft-spoken Reid will, in essence, be the Democratic party's most powerful elected official, thrust into a position of prominence by the twin defeats of current Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota and Sen. John Kerry.
Until now, Reid was Daschle's deputy, best known by C-Span audiences as the constant Democratic presence on the Senate floor. He focused on the chamber's sometimes arcane procedure - the kind of work that wins respect from colleagues but is virtually invisible to the public.
He soon will preside over a group of Senate Democrats generally regarded as liberal. And the caucus will be smaller by four because of Democratic defeats Tuesday.
Republicans might find it hard to pigeonhole Reid as a liberal since his anti-abortion, anti-gun-control views are contrary to Democratic dogma. He was among the minority of Democrats who voted for a ban on certain late-term abortions and he opposed extending the ban on assault weapons, winning the endorsement of the National Rifle Association.
Yet no Democrat is challenging him for leader.
"I think Harry Reid has done the work, put in the time," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., a strong supporter of both abortion rights and gun control. "He is a very good floor leader, very smart. I like the fact that he is a Westerner, frankly, because I am convinced we have to build the West here. So I think he is the logical choice at this time."
The son of a hard-rock miner from Searchlight, Nev., Reid also has been a staunch defender of the mining industry, upsetting environmentalists who otherwise give him high marks. Critics also have said Reid has been too willing to help mining and other interests with financial ties to members of his family.
While Reid's stands on some social issues are more conservative than those of most other Senate Democrats, he has been the most vocal opponent of building a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, roughly 100 miles from Las Vegas, an extremely important issue to Nevadans.
He also stood with Daschle, whom Republicans attacked as an obstructionist because he led Democrats in blocking Bush nominees to federal judgeships and GOP-written legislation to limit lawsuits.
Reid lacks a commanding television presence, but he has been the Democrats' day-to-day leader in the Senate for six years. He received a lot of the credit when Vermont Sen. Jim Jeffords left the Republican party in 2001, handing control of the Senate to the Democrats.
"He's got a quiet way of sneaking up on you," said Sig Rogich, a longtime friend and Republican strategist from Nevada. "He's not flashy, but he's very steady. He does his homework."
Reid occasionally has shown flashes of anger. A year ago, he spoke on the Senate floor for 8 1/2 hours straight, upset that Republicans were planning to spend 30 consecutive hours talking about four judgeships Democrats had blocked.
"Amateur leadership," Reid said, assessing Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.
He later apologized to Frist.
But something else Reid said at the time will likely be put to the test now that Republicans have expanded their majority and replaced moderate Democrats with conservative Republicans.
"We cannot be taken for granted," Reid said. "We cannot be thought of as nothing."
Reid, who will turn 65 next month, has withstood many challenges over the years, personal and professional. While he cruised to a fourth Senate term Tuesday with more than 60 percent of the vote, he won re-election six years ago by just 428 votes.
He also has spoken publicly of his father's suicide in 1972.
Beginning in 1977, he served five years as chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission in an era when secret FBI tapes revealed organized crime controlled some of the Las Vegas casinos. Those tapes also caused authorities to probe whether Reid himself had been compromised, but the investigation exonerated him.
In 1981, police investigated what they called an attempt to kill Reid after someone rigged his car to explode, running a wire from the engine to the gas tank.
On the Net:
Sen. Reid: http://reid.senate.gov
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State of Nevada
Agency for Nuclear Projects
www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/
nwpo@nuc.state.nv.us
775-687-3744
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