Yucca Mountain News Clips
Tuesday, November 16, 2004
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Las Vegas SUN
November 16, 2004

Yucca budget work part of 'lame duck' session

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

WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers are expected to work on a budget for the Yucca Mountain project now that they have returned to pick up business left unfinished the election.

There are also several other Southern Nevada-specific matters hanging in the balance as Congress heads into the "lame duck" session, which serves as the final attempt to get bills through Congress because everything starts over when the new session convenes in January.

The Energy Departments wants $880 million for Yucca Mountain, but so far Congress has left it about $749 million short of that request, pleasing Nevadans and other critics of the project, but frustrating the nuclear industry and project supporters.

Congress will try to figure out how to make up the difference between the $131 million the House passed for the Yucca project and the $880 million request. The department has said it could not keep the project on schedule at that amount.

One option would be to extend a continuing resolution for the project, which would keep it at the $577 million it received in fiscal year 2004, but the Energy Department has not said whether that would work or what amount of money it would be comfortable with under the $880 million.

It is unclear when a final decision on the budget will be made and lawmakers have not set a specific date on when the lame-duck session will end.

Beyond the budget for the proposed nuclear waste storage project at Yucca, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, lawmakers have to finish up eight other spending bills, laws to implement recommendations from the 9/11 Commission and need to handle numerous other items, including nominations.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., has been holding up all non-military and non-judicial nominees until his staff member Greg Jaczko, gets approved for his seat on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The White House officially nominated Jaczko for the position in February as part of a deal Reid made to allow Environmental Protection Agency head Mike Leavitt to be approved. But the Senate Environment and Public Works committee has not conducted a hearing yet for Jaczko and Reid said he will block other nominees until it does.

The nuclear industry opposes Jaczko's nomination because of his work with Reid against the Yucca project. The Nuclear Energy Institute has said it would support any nominee who could impartially evaluate what comes to the commission. The Commission will ultimately decide whether to license the site.

This week also marks the last chance for several Nevada public lands bills.

The House and Senate have passed the Lincoln County Lands bill, but the Senate passed a different version than the House, so it still has to go through the House one more time before it can go to the President.

The bill is scheduled to be taken up Wednesday, according to the legislative schedule.

The biggest difference between the two versions is how money from federal land sales would be distributed when land in Lincoln County is sold.

Under the House version, 50 percent of the money would go to the Bureau of Land Management for Nevada projects, 45 percent would go to Lincoln County and the remaining 5 percent would be deposited in a state education fund.

The Senate version would give the BLM 85 percent and Lincoln County only 10 percent, but it would also allow Lincoln County to tap into money from federal land sales in Clark County.

The Senate bill also would allow the Southern Nevada Water Authority to obtain land for a 299-mile water pipeline corridor between Lincoln and Clark counties. The House version created a 256-mile and 192-mile pipeline corridor for the Southern Nevada Water Authority and the Lincoln County Water District respectively.

Meanwhile, efforts to help make Southern Nevada's new heliport site selection easier and get the ball rolling on the new veterans hospital for the Las Vegas Valley will be a little harder to get through, mainly due to time.

Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi and Interior Secretary Gale Norton announced in late September that the new government owned health facilities for veterans in southern Nevada would be at Pecos Road and the Las Vegas Beltway in North Las Vegas, but Congress needs to approve the transfer of the 155-acre site from the Bureau of Land Management to the Veterans Affairs Department.

The delegation introduced bills in the House and Senate to make the transfer as the selection of the site became final, but Congress went on recess shortly afterward so there has been no action on those transfer bills. A bill usually needs to be addressed and approved by an appropriate committee before going to a full House vote, but in these wrap-up session, a lot of smaller items can get included in big bills.

"It's the kitchen sink approach," said Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., spokesman David Cherry.

Larger bills can contain a lot of good but also bad items, so Berkley and the other lawmakers have to decide where the tipping point is and what to fight to include in large bills, Cherry said.

The heliport bill would give Clark County 229 acres of federal land south of Interstate 15 at Sloan to replace the 45-acre go-kart racing site the county purchased and had deemed its best option so far. If the county could not use it, the land would go back to the Bureau of Land Management

Reid suggested in September that the Sunrise landfill site be added to the bill as another option to study for the new heliport, but it has not been added.

The House Resources Committee passed the bill in early October, but it has not been approved by the full chamber yet. The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee held a hearing on the bill in September, but has not voted on it yet.

If the heliport bill and veterans land bill do not pass this Congress, it is safe to say they would be introduced after the new Congress opens in January, Cherry said.

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Las Vegas SUN
November 16, 2004

Reid named Senate Democratic leader

By Benjamin Grove
<grove@lasvegassun.com>
Sun Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- Senate Democrats today elected Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., to replace Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., as their leader.

Reid, 64, who was the No. 2 Senate Democrat as minority whip, is the first Senate party leader from Nevada. His new job will give the state an even more powerful advocate in the bitterly partisan Congress.

Reid was elected by the Senate's 44 Democrats during a closed-door meeting in the Capitol today. The vote count was not available.

Reid emerged from the meeting and told his often-repeated story of being the son of a hard-rock mine from Searchlight.

It was an important story to revisit because it is a story of American dreams, Reid said.

"If I can make it in America, anyone can," Reid said. "We want people to have the same opportunities that Harry Reid had."

His new role, which will thrust him into the national spotlight, won't be easy.

Republicans are savoring President Bush's re-election and plan to advance the president's agenda with what will be a bigger majority of 55, up from 51.

Democrats are debating what opposition to mount.

Reid today said Democrats will diligently work to "improve" legislation brought forward by Republican leaders who largely control the Senate agenda.

He would "rather dance than fight" with Republicans, he said, but vowed to fight to represent Democrats in looming battles over Social Security, education and judicial nominees.

"I'm not an untested vessel," Reid sai about his political muscle. "I think my record in the Senate stands for itself."

Reid said the Senate had a good record of approving all but 10 of Bush's federal judicial nominees.

He warned Republicans not to attempt to remove the Democrats' ability to filibuster on judges.

But heralding an early fight between the parties, Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., suggested today the Republicans may do just that. "Filibustering on federal judges has got to stop."

Reid called his job as senator "the best job in the world." He said Democrats had a vision for representing the nation on health care, education and pledged to fight to raise the minimum wage.

Reid said Daschle will be sorely missed and that Kerry, lauded several times with standing ovations at today's meeting, will have a high-profile role on issues of his choosing.

"Sen. Kerry is going to find his own role," Reid said. "Sen. Kerry is not a shrinking violet."

The mood in the meeting was "sort of upbeat," said Sen. James Jeffords, an Independent from Vermont who caucuses with the Democrats.

"If you aren't upbeat now, when will you be?" Jeffords said, smiling. "It's going to be a tough road" for Reid, "but he is a skilled parliamentarian. We all have great respect for him."

Reid addressed his pending battle over the budget of Yucca Mountain for the current fiscal year, left unfinished amid a pile of other spending bills.

He and Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., are at a standstill over funding for the proposed nuclear waste repository.

Reid said he had a telephone call to return to Domenici today. He hopes to hammer out a compromise this week, but the issue could be settled by simply freezing funding at last fiscal year's level, considerably less than what the Energy Department wanted.

Lawmakers returned to Congress this week for a lame duck session with the spending bills as a top priority. Republicans and Democrats today huddled separately in their first caucus meetings since the election.

Before the new session starts Reid faces a number of housekeeping decisions, including possible staff changes, spokeswoman Tessa Hafen said.

Reid and Democratic leaders will have to fill committee vacancies left by retired or defeated colleagues.

The Democratic leaders also face broader questions about committees, where much of the work of the Senate is done. Republicans are likely to argue for a more representation on committees and bigger staff and budgets that reflect their larger majority.

Reid's leadership team will include Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., who today was elected to take over Reid's job as Democratic whip, the day-to-day floor manager.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., is next chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which plots election strategies and raises money. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., will be Democratic caucus secretary.

The key to the successes Reid and Daschle achieved is largely attributable to their trust in each other and their complementing styles, observers have said.

Reid and Durbin also have long-standing alliances dating to 1982 when they were elected to the House, where Reid served two terms before moving to the Senate. The two already often work closely in floor debates. Reid today said he and Durbin were good complements. Reid is expected to share some of the media spotlight with the telegenic Durbin and other Democrats.

Durbin today said that he did not view Democratic senators as the lead check on Bush.

"The check on this president will be the people of the United States," Durbin said.

In a House caucus today, Republicans tapped Rep. Dennis Hastert of Illinois for another term as speaker, and Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas was re-elected majority leader.

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Platts

NRC's online document system to return in 10 days, Diaz says

Washington - NRC's electronic document system will be back up in 10 days, Chairman Nils Diaz said today at the American Nuclear Society winter meeting in Washington, D.C. Security concerns prompted NRC to shut access to the on-line public document library Adams on Oct. 25. The system's entire document collection probably won't be immediately available when NRC restores public access. Documents that will be made available first will be related to DOE's planned repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., nuclear power plants, and NRC hearings, Diaz said.

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Space Daily
November 12, 2004

Nuclear Waste Dumps Will Become The Pyramids Of Our Age

Boulder CO (UPI)

One thing many of the so-called red states - those that went Republican - had in common in this past election is lots of land owned by the federal government. An issue that almost turned one of those red states, Nevada, blue and in the Democrat column was the Bush administration's effort to move nearly all the nation's nuclear waste products under a mountain on some of that land.

A pretty good college drinking game could comprise all of the things that could go wrong with long-term nuclear waste storage at Yucca Mountain, the place north of Las Vegas on the Nevada test site that has been chosen to receive the nation's radioactive detritus: nuclear war, asteroid collision, terrorist attack, excess rainfall induced by climate change, drilling for oil and gas or water, earthquake, volcano.

Predicting the future for even the next few minutes can be an uncertain affair. As the saying goes, man plans and God laughs.

No question, the waste designated to be moved to and stored at Yucca Mountain is extremely dangerous.

The waste will be hazardous in one form or another for 1 million years, said John Stuckless, a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Denver, although most will decay away in 10,000 years.

No coincidence, Environmental Protection Agency standards for Yucca Mountain require the waste be safely isolated from the environment for exactly that long.

For a sense of scale, consider that the Great Pyramid of Egypt was built a little more than 4,500 years ago, or 5,500 years short of the mark. Ur, built about 6,000 years ago and considered the world's first city, today is little more than a noticeable rise in the terrain in southern Iraq.

Prognosticators of all stripes have had trouble predicting events a single year in the future, let alone what might happen in the next 10,000.

Which is not to say scientists are not trying. Some would hold a distinct advantage in the drinking game, having studied everything from the likelihood of an earthquake hitting Nevada to the chemical composition of the dust being kicked up as the vast repository is mined.

It probably is safe to say no patch of the Earth has been studied any more intensely than Yucca Mountain. There already have been 900 man-years of research at the site, and the pace shows no sign of slowing.

Take the earthquake possibility.

We know more about the seismic stability of this area than any other block of ground in the world, Stuckless told UPI's Blue Planet. Most earthquakes will have very little effect on these underground facilities.

How little? According to work done by Dave Buesch, another USGS geologist based in Las Vegas, the lyrically named Topopah Springs Tuff - the geologic layer in which the waste repository is located - has not been hit by a serious earthquake in all the years since it was formed.

In-progress results indicate that during the 12.8-million-year history of the Topopah Springs Tuff the rocks did not experience strains greater than 0.1-0.2 percent, which are not large enough to induce significant damage to the rock mass, he said.

Ditto for volcanoes. There are a few in the area, including the dramatic Black Cone, a 100-meter-high frustum of basalt on Crater Flat adjacent to Yucca Mountain, but it is 11.3 million years old.

There has been extensive drilling and a very detailed aerial survey of volcanic remnants searching for possible volcano hazards. Four boreholes have encountered basalt, but the most recent volcanic event occurred about 3.6 million years ago.

Against such evidence, scientists estimate the odds of a volcanic event during Yucca's intended lifetime at about one in 10,000, according to Frank Perry of the earth and environmental science division at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

Lots of alternative ideas have been proposed for storing this waste - shooting it into space, sinking it to the bottom of ocean, among others - but the administration and its scientists have recommended burial.

Geologic disposal is the best alternative, Stuckless said. Scientific data gathered to date support the decision to recommend Yucca Mountain.

One other consideration: By nearly any measure, Yucca Mountain is preferable to leaving the waste where it is. It comprises about 50,000 metric tons lying around in 39 states.

The waste is stored mostly in water-filled swimming pools that were designed as temporary storage facilities until the government took over the responsibility for final disposition under the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act. It directed the Department of Energy to begin disposing of the waste in a geologic repository by 1998.

As in so many federal endeavors, the deadline has slipped.

The current waste storage is concentrated where most nuclear power plants are located - on the East and West costs. Right now, about 161 million people live within 75 miles of these facilities or storage sites.

Despite the scientific consensus that all is well at Yucca Mountain - and despite the widely accepted wisdom that America's dependency on Middle East oil is a bad habit - local and national opposition to anything nuclear has increased.

Construction of new nukes was dealt a death blow with the 1979 Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania and the April 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power station accident in the former Soviet Union. The nuke industry's credibility - not high even its heyday - has never recovered.

Yet the waste sits, waiting.

Some of the concerns are human and organizational. Who will administer this site for 10,000 years? How can future, possibly non-English-speaking generations be warned?

No civilization has lasted 10,000 years. The United States, at 228, is the world's oldest existing democracy. England is 1,500 or so. Persia maybe 2,500. China more than 4,500.

Writing appeared 6,000 years ago. It seems likely over the next 10,000 years civilization will experience similar ups and downs.

In 1984, linguist Thomas A. Sebeok was commissioned by the Office of Nuclear Waste Isolation and a group of other institutions to study possible ways of communicating to unforeseen future societies the potential danger of Yucca Mountain. He found, basically, the problem had no solution, no permanent universal language to convey Danger! Keep Out! forever.

The problem: Words and pictures depend on context, and over 10,000 years, context vanishes. Only a few generations after the last pharaoh, the knowledge of how to translate Egyptian hieroglyphics had disappeared. Without the Rosetta Stone, scientists still might be arguing what the symbols mean.

Sebeok did suggest one possible strategy, but in the process he managed to damage the public image of the nuclear industry even further.

Sebeok said maybe the United States could establish sort of an atomic priesthood - an organization whose solemn duty would be to hand down the critical information from one generation to the next, evolving with time into an eternal taboo reaching back into time immemorial.

That assumes a lot, not the least of which, according to Todd LaPorte, a political science professor at the University of California, Berkeley, is Murphy's Law.

It is a pretty good characterization of the way things operate, LaPorte said. Trial and error learning doesn't seem like such a good model in this case.

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Reno Gazette-Journal
November 15, 2004

Resignation could open door for better nuclear waste plan

Editorial
Reno Gazette-Journal

Few in Nevada will be sad to see Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham replaced in the president´s Cabinet.

The secretary, who announced his resignation Monday, has been a prime supporter of the nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain since his days as senator from Michigan, and not even warnings from some scientists about the weaknesses of the plan have changed his mind.

The resignation isn´t likely to ease Nevada´s difficult quest to hold the opening of the repository, one of the administration´s top energy-policy goals. It is an opportunity, however, for the president to point someone to the energy post who understands that Yucca Mountain is a poor solution to the problem of nuclear waste at the nation´s power plant — it is expensive, possibly dangerous and, at best, only a partial measure that won´t help restart the moribund nuclear energy industry because of its lack of capacity.

Although Sen. John Kerry´s promise to veto the Yucca Mountain plan failed to win him enough votes in the state to hold off President George W. Bush´s electoral victory, Nevadans remain overwhelmingly opposed to the prospect of tons of nuclear waste being moved to their state, polls show. That should cause the new energy secretary to slow down and listen.

Allowing an industry, any industry, to force such a plan on an unwilling population is a clear violation of the state´s rights principles that Republicans hold dear. The new secretary, whoever he or she may be, should take the state´s arguments very seriously, and begin the search for another, more effective and more acceptable solution to the nuclear waste problem.

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Nevada Appeal
November 16, 2004

Sandoval nominated for federal court seat

Brendan Riley

Attorney General Brian Sandoval, a top Nevada Republican viewed as a possible future candidate for governor or Congress, has been nominated for a U.S. District Court judgeship in Reno.

Sandoval, 41, the first Hispanic elected to a statewide constitutional office in Nevada, will accept the post if he's appointed by President Bush and endorsed by the U.S. Senate, spokesman Tom Sargent said Monday.

The nomination of Sandoval, chairman of the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign in Nevada, was made by U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., with the support of U.S. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., Ensign spokesman Jack Finn said.

If approved, Sandoval would take over the U.S. District Court seat now held by Howard McKibben. McKibben, 64, who has been a federal district court judge since 1984, is going on senior status in April.

Sandoval was in a state Pardons Board meeting and not immediately available for comment on the nomination.

On a political fast track, Sandoval was first elected to the state Assembly in 1994 and re-elected in 1996. That was followed by appointments to the governing board of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency and to the Nevada Gaming Commission, where he served as chairman.

Sandoval left the Gaming Commission, to which he was appointed in 1998, to run for state attorney general in 2002. In that race, he was helped by endorsements from Gov. Kenny Guinn and most state police organizations and by backing from major gambling corporations.

As attorney general, he has headed Nevada's court efforts to block a national nuclear waste dump from being located at Yucca Mountain, northwest of Las Vegas. He also oversaw the investigation that has led to pending impeachment proceedings against Republican state Controller Kathy Augustine. Sandoval, representing Guinn, also opposed a federal court challenge of a state Assembly vote that sent a record $833 million tax plan to the Senate on a simple majority vote rather than a constitutionally required two-thirds vote.

Representing Secretary of State Dean Heller, Sandoval lost a legal battle over dual service by full-time government employees in Nevada's part-time Legislature. Sandoval petitioned for a ban on such service, but the court ruled against him in July.

Fans of Sandoval filed a certificate of candidacy to get him into a race against Reid earlier this year, but Sandoval said he wasn't interested. At the time he said he had no interest in seeking a Senate seat, adding that as attorney general until 2006, "I have a contract with the citizens of Nevada."

Sandoval graduated from the University of Nevada, Reno and from The Ohio State University College of Law. He lives in Reno with his wife, Kathleen, and their three children.

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Washington Post
November 16, 2004

Reid Set to Lead Senate Democrats

Nevadan Has Won Praise From Both Sides of Aisle

By Charles Babington
Washington Post Staff Writer

Still recovering from their crushing losses on Nov. 2, Senate Democrats today will turn to Harry M. Reid (Nev.), a quiet insider and consensus-builder, to succeed Thomas A. Daschle (S.D.) as their minority leader.

As badly as Democrats need a strong public voice after Daschle's and John F. Kerry's defeats and the net loss of congressional seats, the senators have signaled that it is more important to have a consummate legislative technician and vote counter at their helm in the 109th Congress, where the GOP's majority will grow from 51 to 55 Senate seats and the Bush administration will largely dictate the agenda.

Reid, a Mormon from tiny Searchlight, Nev., lacks Daschle's flair as a speaker and public figure and rarely goes on TV outside his home state. Moreover, he gets along well with Republican leaders and has parted company with most Democratic lawmakers on some prominent issues, such as his support for a constitutional ban on flag burning and his opposition to abortion in most cases.

But in his five years as Democratic whip, Reid, 64, has put the party's interests ahead of personal politics, all the while spending countless hours learning parliamentary strategies and the art of divining who can be swayed on a given vote and who cannot. Colleagues laud Reid for his 2001 agreement to surrender his right to chair the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee to help persuade Sen. Jim Jeffords (Vt.) to leave the GOP. The decision carried greater meaning in the Senate than out -- just the sort of role that Reid seems likely to embrace in the party's top Senate post.

It is hard to find a senator from either party who thinks his colleagues have made a bad choice in replacing Daschle.

"He's going to be a great leader," Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said of the former Capitol police officer and amateur boxer. "Beneath that soft-spoken exterior is a very tough guy. He's still got some of the boxer in him."

Republicans offered similar praise. "I have found Harry one of the Democratic leaders you could work with and talk to," said Sen. Trent Lott (Miss.), a former minority and majority leader. "He's got a very tough job."

Where Daschle became a media-savvy lawmaker and frequent guest on Sunday morning talk shows, Reid might delegate some of those duties to his more telegenic colleagues, several senators and aides said. For example, his replacement as party whip will be Sen. Richard J. Durbin (Ill.), who, like Schumer, is hardly afraid to go before a bank of cameras.

"The Democrats never lack for bully-pulpiteers," said Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes (D-Md.). "I think Reid will be quite skillful at the job, both the inside and the outside [components]. He's certainly skillful at the inside dimension." Reid probably will do fine as a public spokesman as well, Sarbanes said, adding: "Of course, that hasn't been asked of him up to now."

Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), who narrowly lost a bitter Senate race to Reid in 1998 but later became a friend and frequent admirer, said: "Working inside the Senate is his strength." He added, "We'll have to wait and see how he does as far as television" and other public appearances go.

None of this is to suggest that Reid shrinks from battles -- either with Republicans or with fellow Democrats balking at casting a tough party-line vote, lawmakers and staff members said. "He has absolutely no fear," said Jimmy Ryan, a former Reid aide who now lobbies for Citigroup. "He knows when to call a vote, and when to let your members know it's time to walk the plank. . . . He's probably the best reader of human beings I've ever met."

Reid's first challenge is to help his fellow Democrats assess the election results and decide whether to soften their opposition to GOP initiatives such as putting conservatives on the federal bench or drilling for oil in Alaskan wilderness. Daschle's loss is credited largely to Republican John Thune's portrayal of him as "the chief obstructionist" to President Bush's agenda, a worrisome thought for Democrats seeking reelection in 2006.

"His immediate challenge is to preside over an internal soul-searching debate" on "just how much to obstruct," said Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.), the GOP whip. McConnell said he hoped the new Democratic caucus would be less confrontational than the last but added: "The duty of the opposition is to oppose."

Reid is unlikely to soften his stance on one issue: his strong opposition to the administration's plan to build a huge nuclear waste repository beneath Nevada's Yucca Mountain.

Reid declined to grant interviews on his new leadership position until this morning's caucus vote makes it official. But shortly after the election, he hinted to Nevada reporters that Senate Democrats will make few, if any, concessions despite their setbacks.

Reforming Social Security to permit creation of private investment accounts? "I'm not going to do that," Reid told Las Vegas One, a cable news channel. He called Bush's No Child Left Behind program "a disaster." As for the Republican goal of limiting liability for doctors, corporations and others that might be sued for wrongful deaths or injuries, he said, "I know this may not be politically correct, but I believe that people who are injured deserve some [way] of being made whole."

Friends say Reid developed his Democratic values in Searchlight, a desert mining community so tiny he had to hitchhike to another town to attend high school. His mother was a high school dropout, his father a hard-drinking miner who committed suicide when his son was an adult. Reid graduated from Utah State University and George Washington University Law School, working part-time as a Capitol police officer.

Nevada voters elected him to the legislature when he was 28 and, 12 years later, as lieutenant governor. He lost a 1974 U.S. Senate race to Paul Laxalt (R) by 624 votes but was elected to the House in 1982. He won the Senate seat that Laxalt vacated in 1986 and was reelected in 1992 and 1998 with less than 52 percent of the vote.

The Los Angeles Times last year chronicled cases in which Reid's sons lobbied for groups that benefited from congressional actions in which the senator played a role. Reid said he was trying to help Nevada interests, not his family, and the issue faded after he banned relatives from lobbying his office. He easily won a fourth term Nov. 2, a relief after the 1998 nail-biter.

"I'm the face of the Democratic Party today," he told Las Vegas One after the election. "I'm not too sure that we need a show horse at this stage. I think maybe a workhorse may be what the country needs."

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Salt Lake Tribune
November 16, 2004

Environment officials use cask woes to aid N-waste fight

Skull Valley site: They argue the storage can't be considered temporary

By Patty Henetz
The Salt Lake Tribune

Utah environmental officials have launched a new line of attack on the proposed high-level nuclear waste storage site on the Skull Valley Goshute Reservation, 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City.

The state Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) says assurances the storage facility would be "temporary" were debunked by the disclosure last month that the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) won't accept the type of waste cannister proposed for the Private Fuel Storage (PFS) facility at its permanent repository.

 The "late contention" filed Friday aims to sway the Atomic Safety Licensing Board's impending decision on whether to grant PFS a license to ship 4,000 steel canisters of spent fuel rods from electric utilities, mostly in the East, to Skull Valley. Once in Utah, the deadly waste would sit on a concrete pad for up to 40 years before being shipped on to Yucca Mountain, 90 miles north of Las Vegas.

But environmental analyses of the PFS proposal to store 40,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel never considered the possibility that the waste canisters wouldn't later be accepted at Yucca Mountain.

That omission raises national concerns about a "dysfunctional national waste management system, and added risks and costs from multiple and unnecessary fuel shipments back and forth across the country," the complaint states.

Dianne Nielson, DEQ executive director, said Monday that getting the licensing board to consider the late filing was a long shot, since the board in mid-September concluded three weeks of closed-doorhearings on the license.

Those hearings centered on the correctness of its earlier finding that a possible fighter jet crash onto the open-air waste facility posed an unacceptable risk. The board could issue the license as early as January, and PFS could begin its shipments by 2007.

Nielson said that since she learned of the DOE cannister rules, she has found it increasingly difficult to get information either from the Department of Energy or the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) - or even whether the two federal agencies had talked with one another about the problem.

"We don't know what is happening with them," Nielson said. "If the industry is going to continue to use this canister, and DOE isn't going to accept them at Yucca Mountain, we have a significant disconnect. So it seems to me it's in everybody's interest to get this addressed."

An NRC spokeswoman didn't respond to a request for comment Monday.

At an October meeting of the U.S. Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board in Salt Lake City, Gary Lanthrum, director of DOE's transportation program, told The Salt Lake Tribune that DOE can only take nuclear waste at reactor sites. The waste would have to be packed according to contract before the agency could take title to it and ship it to the repository.

PFS, however, plans to place the waste in its own steel shipping canisters, which would be welded shut. There would be no way to repack the waste to DOE specifications in Skull Valley, and it would remain the property of the utilities thatcreated it. Lanthrum said that makes the PFS plan unacceptable under the agency's current contract.

Lanthrum repeated his statements to surprised Utah officials, including Nielson and Gov. Olene Walker, who later issued a statement reemphasizing her opposition to PFS. Gov.-elect Jon Huntsman Jr. also is opposed to the proposed nuclear waste storage site.

The state's complaint to the licensing board included concerns about the lack of assurance that PFS, a limited liability consortium of eight utilities, would have sufficient operating revenue or commitments from its customers to pay to repack or reship the fuel.

PFS spokeswoman Sue Martin declined comment on the complaint, except to say that PFS attorneys have asked the licensing board to be allowedto delay its formal response to the state's complaint until Dec. 1.

Late last month, the state petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to review an appeals court ruling against state laws passed in 1998 and 2001 aimed at blocking the project.

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St. George Daily Spectrum
November 16, 2004

In Our View : Not testing casks is a fatal gamble

It's long been believed here that the idea of shipping nuclear waste to the underground storage facility at Yucca Mountain, just 90 miles north of Las Vegas, is questionable.

There have been questions about the security of shipping 3,000 pounds of nuclear waste past more than 11 million people in 45 states, including Utah, annually. There have been concerns that the facility itself may not be safe in the event of seismic activity and water leaks.

Now we have learned that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission does not have enough money to sufficiently test the casks in which the waste will be hauled, using instead computer simulations and analysis.

The federal government is already responsible for thousands of radiation-related deaths that occurred following activity at the Nevada Test Site. Now it is on the cusp of further endangering American lives as it rushes to transport these volatile materials past an innocent segment of our population, then store them next door to what has become the fastest-growing geographical region in the United States.

If ever a line was drawn in the sand, this is it.

It's time for elected county, state and federal officials from the West to put aside partisan prejudices and unite in an effort to stop this process. By doing so, perhaps they can drive some common sense into the heads of their counterparts representing the other states where this waste will visit.

As we know, if a catastrophe can occur, it will occur.

If it is possible for one of those trucks or rail cars to overturn, jackknife or run into something that could cause leakage from these untested casks, it will. It's not a matter of if, but when.

Will it happen while one of those trucks is speeding down Interstate 15 in Southern Utah? Will it happen while one of those trucks is heading west through America's heartland? Will it happen while one of those trucks is pulling into one of the several major metropolitan areas along the route?

The federal government is gambling with lives here -- your life and ours.

We hear, constantly, about how the value we place on human life separates us from other cultures. That statement, unfortunately, no longer rings true, not when the NRC is willing to ship these casks of rolling death that have not been adequately tested.

If ever there was a reason to write your representatives, now is the time.

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Middletown Press
November 16, 2004

Nuke plant decommissioning ‘progressing´

Josh Mrozinski
Middletown Press Staff

MIDDLETOWN -- The decommissioning of the Connecticut Yankee Atomic Power plant continues to progress, according to a company spokeswoman.

An update of the progress will be given at tonight´s Community Decommissioning Advisory Committee meeting at the Connecticut Light & Power building on Randolph Road.

"Since we started self-performance work last fall, decommissioning is about 50 percent complete," Kelley Smith, spokeswoman for the plant, said. "As of this week we´ll have 26 casks on the fuel storage pad."

The decommissioning process, which began in 1998, involves demolishing buildings and moving 43 spent-fuel and greater than Class-C Waste into dry casks at a storage area which is three-quarters of a mile from the plant. Greater than Class-C Waste is cut-up metal from the reactor vessel.

The spent-fuel and waste will eventually be transported to Yucca Mountain in Nevada when it opens. Smith said the fuel transfer will be completed by the first quarter of 2005.

Smith said they´ve started to take down the turbine building and have three buildings and structures now undergoing demolition. Five buildings and structures, she said, have been demolished.

She said the two-story building involved in the late September fire has been torn down. The fire broke out in the building during demolition. Workers were outside of the building pulling down steel beams when the fire broke out.

The workers were cutting the steel beams with torch cutting equipment. The beams became hot from the cutting, and the insulation that was behind the beams caught fire when it was exposed to the air from the workers pulling down the beams.

There were no injuries in the fire.

"Overall, things are moving very smoothly and we are making good progress," Smith said.

Hugh Curley, chairman of the Community Decommissioning Advisory Committee, said condition reports will be reviewed at the meeting. Demolition, he said, seems to be speeding up while the radiological activity has entered a regular pace.

He said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which couldn´t attend the late September meeting, will report on the last six months of the plant´s decommissioning.

And talk about how to demolish the containment dome, he said, will continue. The question is more about how to get rid of the bulky waste and its schedule than how the dome should be demolished, he said. The waste could be taken away on barge or on the river.

He thinks the plant will take the route of its sister plant, Maine Yankee, in Wiscasset. Curley, who witnessed the destruction of the dome in June, said at the meeting that the blast left a 75-foot high pile of ruble.

The columns were wrapped to keep the blast from spreading debris.

Curley said there also might be a discussion on what the future community oversight of the storage site will look like.

"There should be a vehicle to call management to the table," Curley said.

To contact Josh Mrozinski, call (860) 347-3331, ext. 222 or jmrozinski@middletownpress.com.

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Nuclear Engineering
November 16, 2004

Spencer Abraham leaves DoE

Spencer Abraham handed President Bush his resignation as energy secretary on 15 November. The head of the US Department of Energy (DoE) told Bush that he wishes to spend more time with his family.

Abraham was senator for Michigan between 1995 and 2001 where he authored 22 pieces of legislation. He unsuccessfully proposed to dismantle the DoE during this period and came to joke about the apparent contradiction when he was appointed as head of the department in January 2001. He went on to hold the post longer than any before.

Abraham´s tenure saw a huge increase in nuclear non-proliferation efforts and the beginnings of Bush´s hydrogen initiative but also the USA´s worst ever blackout and the soaring of crude oil prices to $56 per barrel. He faced pressure, as will his successor, over proposed oil drilling in the Alaskan wildlife refuge and a series of problems with the Yucca Mountain repository project.

Bush may seek to appoint one Democrat to his otherwise Republicans-only cabinet, as he did in 2001, to gather Democratic senate votes and ease the path of the currently stalled Energy Bill. Potential successors to Abraham include:

Senator John Breaux: a Democrat from Louisiana, but observers think he may be committed to working as a lobbyist next year.

Tony Garza: current US ambassador to Mexico and former member of the Texas Railroad Commission, which oversees the oil and gas industry in the state where Bush served as governor.

J Bennet Johnson: the former Democratic senator of Louisiana, he has been a lobbyist for eight years and turned down the position in 2001.

Tom Kuhn: president of the Edison institute, a lobby group for electric utilities. Attended Yale university with Bush.

William Martin: served as deputy energy secretary under President Ronald Reagan.

Kyle McSlarrow: Abraham´s current deputy, he already handles day-to-day affairs, is chair of the US-Russia Energy Working Group and well-liked in Washington.

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New York Times
November 16, 2004

Energy Secretary: Some Steps Taken on Critical Energy Issues, but No Breakthroughs

David E. Rosenbaum

WASHINGTON, Nov. 15 - When he took office as energy secretary, the main issues facing Spencer Abraham included an outmoded electricity industry, security at the nuclear weapons laboratory at Los Alamos in New Mexico, the legal liability of producers of the gasoline additive MTBE, the future of nuclear power, the development of clean-coal technology, oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, mileage standards for automobiles, the storage of nuclear waste and atomic weapons proliferation overseas.

Those remain among the critical issues for the Energy Department, an agency with more than 100,000 employees and contractors and a $23 billion-a-year budget.

In the meantime, gasoline prices have nearly doubled, and a blackout crippled the Northeast and upper Midwest. Little has been accomplished in those areas, either.

The main reason is that hard as Mr. Abraham tried to push a comprehensive energy bill in Congress, the lawmakers were unable to resolve their political, commercial and geographic divisions, and year after year, energy legislation foundered.

"He faced a lot of tough issues," Frank Maisano, an energy industry lobbyist, said. "While he may not have seen the fruits of his labor, he may have made accomplishments possible for his successor."

Mr. Maisano compared Mr. Abraham to "a middle reliever who comes into the game after the starter and holds on to the lead until the closer comes in for the last inning."

Mr. Abraham was instrumental in the enactment of a law in 2002 to establish Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the site for the disposal of nuclear waste from power plants. Additional steps have been stymied by court rulings and budget shortfalls.

He had some success on securing nuclear weapons in the hands of countries in the former Soviet Union.

Past energy secretaries are not remembered for major achievements. The problems the department deals with are difficult politically and often, like high gasoline prices, beyond its capacity to solve.

Mr. Abraham remained in office for a full four-year term, something few have done since the first energy secretary, James R. Schlesinger, took office in 1977 under President Jimmy Carter and resigned two years later.

Mr. Abraham did not set the administration's energy agenda. That was done in 2001 by a panel headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, and Mr. Cheney was recognized as the administration's leading spokesman on energy.

"The partisanship in Washington during the past several years kept Congress from passing a comprehensive energy policy that could have begun to improve our energy future," said former Gov. John Engler of Michigan, a Republican who is president of the National Association of Manufacturers. "But Spence pushed a variety of measures that will continue into the future."

In his resignation letter, Mr. Abraham said he wanted to spend more time with his family.

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Washington Post
November 16, 2004

Abraham Leaving Energy Department

Nonproliferation Efforts Won Praise

By Greg Schneider
Washington Post Staff Writer

Spencer Abraham joined the exodus from President Bush's Cabinet yesterday, submitting his resignation as energy secretary after four years of running a department that faced a series of high-profile challenges.

Abraham's watch coincided with the California energy crisis of 2001, the collapse of Enron and the energy-trading market, last year's investigation of a major blackout in the Midwest and Northeast, record oil and gasoline prices, and stepped-up efforts to secure Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the repository for the nation's nuclear waste.

He worked to destroy nuclear stockpiles in Russia and to reorganize his department's nonproliferation offices, winning praise from the International Atomic Energy Agency for his efforts. Abraham also was an enthusiastic advocate for advancing research into hydrogen power.

The administration's signature effort during his tenure was a change in direction in national energy policy. But the package of legislation pushed by Bush and Vice President Cheney, who both had ties to the energy industry in their days as businessmen, remains stalled in conference committee.

Abraham, 52, said in his letter to the president on Sunday that he is proud of his accomplishments but needs to spend more time with his wife and three young daughters.

The former Republican senator from Michigan was an unlikely choice for secretary of energy. He had no experience in the energy field and once even advocated abolishing the department. The easygoing Abraham wound up winning generally good reviews, although critics charged that he went along with an administration that was too friendly to industry.

A graduate of Harvard Law School, Abraham served as chairman of the Michigan Republican Party and as deputy chief of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle before being elected to the Senate in 1994. His primary area of expertise was his home state's auto industry.

"Going into the job without a strong energy background, I thought, was a huge asset for him, that he wasn't automatically aligned with oil or coal or gas. He really could approach all of the different energy sectors with an evenhanded approach," said former Michigan governor John M. Engler, who heads the National Association of Manufacturers and is a friend of Abraham's.

Sen. Jeff Bingaman (N.M.), the top Democrat on the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, praised Abraham for his bipartisan spirit.

"He was always willing to hear our perspective, which I appreciate," Bingaman said. "I think he's had a very difficult job" because Cheney has clearly been the administration's lead voice on energy policy, the senator added.

Advocates for the environment and for alternative energy say Abraham did not provide leadership during a time of increasing concern about global warming and dependence on oil from the Middle East.

Although the Bush administration deserves credit for making energy policy a national priority, it produced a strategy that relies too heavily on fossil fuels, said Arjun Makhijani, president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in Takoma Park.

Abraham's successor will have to pick up the matter and push Congress to act, experts said, as well as deal with the unresolved matter of storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain. Abraham said he will stay in office until a successor is confirmed. If that stretches beyond Inauguration Day, Jan. 20 -- which is likely -- he will qualify as the longest-serving energy secretary.

After leaving office, Abraham plans to stay in the Washington area and work in private business, Engler said.

Staff writer Dafna Linzer in New York contributed to this report.

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Detroit Free Press
November 16, 2004

Abraham leaves Energy post with much undone

Whether by design or coincidence, it figured that Spencer Abraham would announce his resignation as U.S. Energy secretary on a day when it was completely overshadowed by the departure of Secretary of State Colin Powell. Even during his six years in the U.S. Senate, Abraham never seemed to relish the spotlight. Oh, he'd get out there when he had to, including two tough Senate races in which he posted a 1-1 record and showed he could be an effective campaigner.

But the self-effacing Abraham functioned best as a supporting player, dependable operative and strategist for more visible Republicans. When Abraham leaves government early next year, he will have been the longest-serving Energy secretary since the post was created in 1977. But he has not been a high-profile cabinet member, and his tenure will be notable for the administration's failure to persuade Congress to adopt a national energy agenda.

Abraham was most visible on two issues: The aftermath of the massive blackout of August 2003 and the decision to designate Nevada's Yucca Mountain as the nation's disposal site for nuclear waste. Not enough has changed to prevent the former from happening again. The latter has not yet been implemented because of court battles.

Gasoline prices have soared on Abraham's watch, but he has steadfastly refused to tap the nation's strategic petroleum reserve to affect the market. He also put a great deal of good work into preventing the world's nuclear material from falling into the wrong hands.

While the United States became no less dependent on foreign oil during Abraham's years as Energy secretary, the world became a little safer. That's no small achievement.

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Daily Texan
November 16, 2004

Energy secretary will leave amid Los Alamos controversy

Jeff Squire and David Kassabian

The man guiding Los Alamos policy announced his resignation Monday, but the step down will not affect operations at the lab nor its ongoing security investigation, lab officials said.

In a letter to President Bush, Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham said he will leave the Cabinet as soon as his replacement is named. He announced his resignation Monday with three other Cabinet members, including Secretary of State Colin Powell. He cited personal reasons in his letter to the president, as have all of the retirees.

As the 10th energy secretary, he determined the nation's policies on energy supply and security. His department oversees every national laboratory, including Los Alamos, which it manages in conjunction with the National Nuclear Security Agency Administration and the University of California.

As a nuclear facility, Los Alamos is governed primarily by the NNSA, not the DOE, therefore the lab's policy would remain consistent under any secretary, said Roy Schwitters, chair of the University's physics department and member of the task force investigating the UT System's likely bid.

Abraham's resignation comes in the middle of a security investigation at Los Alamos stemming from a series of July security lapses alledgedly involving classified computer disks and a laser accident involving an intern.

Linton Brooks, director of the NNSA, ordered an indefinite suspension of almost all operations at the nuclear weapons facility July 16, a week before Abraham suspended activity at all DOE-owned labs in areas that involve removable hardware, such as computer disks.

Some areas of Los Alamos are still closed, in part due to Abraham's orders. As of Monday, 63 percent of the lab's most classified work is still shut down, in addition to 22 percent of less-classified operations, said lab spokeswoman Kathy DeLucas. The current estimate for all work at the lab to resume is mid-December, DeLucas said.

"This is not a horse race," DeLucas said. "We wanted to do it right, so we take a very careful, measured approach."
A preliminary request for bids on Los Alamos was scheduled to be released by the NNSA in mid-October but they may be delayed for another three weeks, NNSA spokesman Al Stotts said from the regional office in Albuquerque.

"I'm not sure there's been a delay," Stotts said. "It takes as long as it takes to make sure everything is correct, and we've crossed all our T's and dotted our I's. We don't want a product going out that has any flaws in it."

Abraham's crack-down on Los Alamos was part of his effort to safeguard nuclear materials in the United States and Russia. In May, he proposed closing a reactor at Sandia National Laboratories, also in New Mexico. After a three-year period, the department will close the reactor to reduce the number of sites with enough nuclear material to potentially be attractive to terrorists.

He recommended Yucca Mountain as the nation's nuclear dump site, which the Senate approved in 2002 despite outraged Nevadans and environmentalists. As a response to Bush's calls to reduce American reliance on foreign oil, Abraham instituted $1.54 billion in federal funding of fuel cell technology for automobiles over five years, which has been both praised as revolutionary and criticized as unrealistic.

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Indianapolis Star
November 16, 2004

Anti-nuclear work key for departing energy secretary

Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham informed President Bush Monday he would leave the Cabinet when his successor is confirmed next year. That would make him the longest-serving energy secretary -- just over four years -- since the department was created in 1977.

As a Republican senator from Michigan, Abraham once suggested dismantling the Energy Department. He later changed his mind and began to view it as essential.

Abraham said acceleration of nuclear nonproliferation programs aimed at keeping nuclear materials away from terrorists "heads the list of important accomplishments" of the past four years.

Abraham faced several other major issues, including the nation's worst power blackout; soaring crude oil and gasoline prices; and finding a nuclear waste repository.

Abraham recommended, and the president approved, Yucca Mountain in Nevada as the government's permanent tomb for tons of used reactor fuel accumulating at commercial power plants. A federal court challenge has put that project in question.

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GovExec
November 15, 2004

Omnibus negotiations pick up as lawmakers seek a deal

By Peter Cohn, CongressDailyPM

Negotiations on a $388.4 billion fiscal 2005 omnibus spending package picked up Monday in hopes of striking a deal that would avoid extending the lame duck session into next week.

Aides were struggling against an ambitious timetable to put together a package of spending additions and offsets to remain within an overall fiscal 2005 discretionary spending cap of $821.9 billion.

They are also dealing with last-minute project requests and policy riders from both sides of the Capitol, since the omnibus is likely to be the last train out of the legislative station. Republican leaders also are still wrestling with the need to increase the statutory debt limit. While the Senate plans to approve a stand-alone debt limit increase before many Democrats leave town Wednesday for the opening of the Clinton presidential library in Little Rock, Ark., the House has not yet decided on an approach, leadership aides said Monday.

Senate action on a stand-alone increase does not preclude House leaders from tucking it into another bill, aides noted, although they held out the possibility of a separate House vote, perhaps Thursday. The Treasury Department has been using accounting gimmicks to stave off default on the current $7.384 trillion debt limit, but by Thursday those cash reserves will be exhausted. An increase of $690 billion, and possibly more, is being discussed.

The fiscal 2005 omnibus is likely to include at least eight of the remaining nine annual spending bills -- Congress has previously approved four -- although pessimism remains that the Energy and Water spending bill can be completed. Staff negotiations have not gone well, and appropriators remain apart on funds for the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, as well as other issues such as nuclear weapons programs. Incoming Senate Minority Leader Reid opposes increased funding for the Yucca Mountain project.

House and Senate aides were working under the assumption that about $4 billion would be added to the omnibus, although the details were still in flux. An across-the-board cut of about 0.75 percent is in the works for non-defense, non-homeland security programs, which would free up $2.9 billion, and another $1 billion could be found by moving public housing authorities to a calendar-year budget. Other savings are under discussion, aides said, that could increase the add-on price tag. Programs funded by the fiscal 2005 Labor-HHS appropriations bill would receive about $1 billion more, while veterans' medical care would see an additional $1.2 billion and NASA another $800 million.

The remaining funds would be parceled out among several accounts, such as U.S. Postal Service biohazard defenses and the Bush administration's Millennium Challenge account foreign-aid initiative. There also are ongoing discussions about emergency designations to get around spending caps. For example, appropriators would add about $300 million for the Low Income Heating Emergency Assistance program -- designated a "contingent emergency" as in previous years, subject to administration approval -- and $7 million for the Postal Service.

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Seattle Post Intelligencer
November 15, 2004

Bush Cabinet Excerpts

The Associated Press

Excerpts from cabinet secretaries' letters of resignation:

From Secretary of State Colin Powell:

As we have discussed in recent months, I believe that now that the election is over the time has come for me to step down as Secretary of State and return to private life. I, therefore, resign as the 65th Secretary of State, effective at your pleasure.

Mr. President, I thank you for the honor and privilege of serving you and the American people for the past almost four years. I am pleased to have been part of a team that launched the Global War Against Terror, liberated the Afghan and Iraqi people, brought the attention of the world to the problem of proliferation, reaffirmed our alliances, adjusted to the Post-Cold War World and undertook major initiatives to deal with the problem of poverty and disease in the developing world. In these and in so many other areas, your leadership was the driving force of our success.

I am especially honored to have led the dedicated men and women of the Department of State. They nobly serve the American people and the cause of freedom around the world everyday.

From Agriculture Secretary Ann Veneman:

As I have traveled throughout the country, there is no doubt that your vision and leadership have strengthened our farm economy and reinvigorated America's heartland.

Our nation's diverse farm and food sector is stronger and more vibrant than ever before. Your policies have helped fuel record farm income and provided economic stimulus to rural America. Aggressive trade policies have opened new markets for America's farmers and ranchers, resulting in record farm exports. Today, more conservation tools are available to enhance our nation's natural resources, and your Healthy Forests Initiative is helping prevent devastating wildfires. Under your management agenda, we have improved USDA's operations and delivery of services through E-Government programs.

After the attacks of September 11, 2001, your leadership ensured that actions were taken to better protect the homeland, including our food supply. And, your compassion for others has strengthened our nation's child nutrition programs and helped fight hunger around the world.

From Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham:

Since 2001 we have developed the nation's first comprehensive energy plan in over a decade and implemented 90% of its recommendations. We have launched the most ambitious new energy technology initiatives in the world with our Hydrogen and Future Gen programs. We have embarked upon a program to accelerate the clean up of our former weapons sites and reduced by 50 years the timeframe for the complete remediation of our sites. We have pressed ahead with the Yucca Mountain project and undertaken a whole new wave of technology initiatives aimed at improving the safety and long range stability of nuclear energy as a long term power source. We have expanded and accelerated our non proliferation programs with Russia and as a result significantly reduced the timeframe needed to secure Russia's nuclear materials. We have also dramatically expanded the scope of our programs beyond Russia through the Global Threat Reduction Initiative and are on the road to eliminating the risk of nuclear terrorism worldwide. We have successfully launched an ambitious initiative to modernize our weapons complex so that we can retain our capabilities to meet any 21st century threat.

From Education Secretary Rod Paige:

I am very proud of the many accomplishments achieved by the talented and committed men and women of the United States Department of Education. Because of your strong and clear leadership, our work has been a labor of love. Of the many important accomplishments achieved by the Department during this short and intense four-year period, I believe the following are illustrative:

-The No Child Left Behind Act's reform initiatives have been well launched. Despite highly financed and organized opposition, a penchant for waiver requests, and other types of delays, all fifty states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have approved accountability plans, and all states are working vigorously to gain and maintain compliance with NCLB law and regulations. ...

-The national education culture is changing. All across the nation, the educational dialogue is now about results, and less about inputs. ...

-The stubborn, and I believe unacceptable, academic achievement gap between minority students and their white peers, essentially stagnant throughout the period between 1992 and 2000, has begun to close.

-Hispanic and African American test scores, especially in the big urban centers of our nation, are beginning to rise. The percentage of African American and Hispanic fourth graders who know their reading and math basics increased substantially more between 2000 and 2003 than in the previous eight years combined.

-- On the Net:

Powell letter:
http://wid.ap.org/documents/cabinet/state.pdf

Veneman letter:
http://wid.ap.org/documents/cabinet/agriculture.pdf

Abraham letter:
http://wid.ap.org/documents/cabinet/energy.pdf

Paige letter:
http://wid.ap.org/documents/cabinet/education.pdf

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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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