Yucca Mountain News Clips
Friday, June 10, 2005
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Las Vegas SUN
June 10, 2005
DOE official: Yucca plans advancing
2015 eyed as opening date for nuke dump
By Stephen Curran
<stephen.curran@lasvegassun.com>
Las Vegas Sun
PAHRUMP -- An Energy Department official pledged Thursday that the planned nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain is moving "full steam ahead," although a representative of an energy company said he was eyeing 2015 for a potential opening.
"We're moving full steam ahead with this thing," J. Gary Lanthrum, director of the Energy Department's Office of National Transportation, told the Central Nevada Community Protection Working Group. "But I don't want to get everybody energized and then have to pull back."
Delays and now the question of falsified work on the project have clouded the future of the project 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Former Yucca Mountain Project head Margaret Chu said in March that engineers were looking for a 2012 opening date, two years later than expected, but engineer David Jones, who spoke to the working group on behalf of nuclear power plant owner Exelon Energy, said company officials were now eyeing 2015 as a possible target.
Whether either date is a possibility will likely hinge on the outcome of a delayed license application engineers are now scrambling to complete before the end of the year, Lanthrum said.
Even then, the department will face a lengthy Nuclear Regulatory Commission review before it receives the final go-ahead to begin building the repository.
Despite congressional and internal investigations into a batch of e-mails that have raised concerns about the falsification of some of the science being used to support Yucca Mountain, project managers are pushing forward.
Lanthrum said the department hopes later this year to begin the conceptual design of rail cars that would carry high-level nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain.
Meanwhile the Energy Department is standing behind the scientific review of the site, said W. John Arthur, deputy director of the department's Office of Repository Development, as he discussed e-mails between U.S. Geological Survey and Energy Department scientists that brought the science into question.
"It really is the worst thing, when individuals have an absolute disrespect for quality assurance, at least allegedly," Arthur said during the working group's public meeting at the Pahrump campus of the Community College of Southern Nevada.
"The onus is on us to show this is limited to two out of the thousands of scientists working on the project. ... We have absolute confidence in the people working for us."
The widely controversial project has been the source of tension between state leaders leaders and those in the rural counties where the 319-mile rail line would run.
Rural leaders, who largely see the nuclear waste dump as inevitable, have publicly stated they intend to negotiate with federal officials for financial benefits from the project while state leaders have mostly been outspoken in bipartisan criticism of the federal government.
The working group has been a forum for rural leaders to work with the Energy Department and others on Yucca Mountain issues.
The state attorney general last year found the working group may have knowingly violated the state open meeting law when it closed doors of meetings to residents and media. The meetings were later ordered to be open after a complaint filed by the Sun and joined by the Nevada Press Association.
Nye County Commission Chairwoman Candice Trummell, a long-time proponent of the project and member of the working group, estimated the rail line could bring "thousands" of jobs during a construction process likely to last years.
Karen Leigh Kimball, a vice president for engineering firm Parsons, said no definitive studies on the economic impact on how the line could help the rural counties have been conducted but that it could likely bring about 1,000 construction-related jobs.
How many of those would be recruited locally would depend on what percentage of those workers were management-level employees, who would likely be brought in from elsewhere, she said.
Nye County, where Pahrump sits, has already seen more than $100 million in economic benefits from the Nuclear Waste Policy Act signed in the late 1980s. That legislation -- which has paid Nye County about $10.5 million a year since -- has allowed the growing county to pay for much-needed infrastructure improvements, Trummell said.
In that time commissioners have approved improvements to parks and recreation facilities, including a new community center in Beatty and numerous public safety improvements, she said.
If the Yucca project were to fail, the flow of money would stop, Trummell said.
"That money is being used and has been used," she said. "There's a lot of things we've done."
The board, on which she has sat since 2003, has been careful not to earmark the funds for necessary operating expenses, a move that will allow a county perhaps best known outside Nevada for its legalized brothels to keep running even without the windfall, Trummell said.
So, even if the project goes belly-up, "it isn't like Nye County's going to go bankrupt," she said.
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Las Vegas SUN
June 10, 2005
U.S. Geological Suvey chief Groat resigns
Decision not linked to Yucca e-mails
By Suzanne Struglinski
<suzanne@lasvegassun.com>
Sun Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Geological Survey chief resigned Thursday, but a spokeswoman said his departure has nothing to do with the ongoing investigation into e-mails that indicate his agency's employees may have falsified data on the Yucca Mountain project.
Charles Groat, who has been in charge of the agency since November 1998, will leave the federal government post on June 17 to go work for the University of Texas at Austin. Carolyn Bell, a USGS spokeswoman said the university has been courting him for some time and probably finally "sweetened the pot' enough for him to take a position there.
Bell said Groat had worked in Texas before and most people assumed he would go back there.
The U.S. Geological Survey, as part of the Interior Department, does mapping and scientific research on the country's land and water. Scientists from the agency did research work for the Energy Department's proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The Energy Department announced it March that it discovered e-mails sent between May 1998 and March 2000 that indicate a U.S. Geological Survey employee fabricated documentation of his work.
The announcement sparked investigations by the Interior and Energy Department inspector generals, the FBI and U.S. Attorneys office and an internal investigation by the Energy Department into the scientific work itself.
Groat in April testified in front of the House Government Reform subcommittee that is investigating the Yucca e-mails and allegations of document falsification at the direction of panel chairman Jon Porter, R-Nev.
Porter called for an independent commission to review the case, rather the agencies themselves.
Groat agreed to such a review, but Ted Garrish, who headed the Yucca project at the time but has since retired, said he did not see a difference between an independent commission doing the review and the department putting together its own panel.
"Very much to his credit as a scientist and public servant, Dr. Groat called for an independent commission to help uncover the extent of the damage that was done," said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. "Unfortunately DOE (the Energy Department) continues to find excuses, misinform the public and stonewall Congress in a desperate effort to jam through the project."
Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said Groat "actually appeared to be concerned about the e-mails" but was not sure Groat's departure will affect the investigations.
"I would hope that in the meantime, the White House, DOE and USGS would do more than just pay lip service to Nevada's concerns," Berkley said in a statement. "Without an independent investigation, we may never get to the truth about this shameful episode and its ramifications on the Yucca Mountain Project."
At the hearing, Groat declined to discuss the e-mails in detail pending inspector general investigations. 'We have a 125-year reputation for sound, unbiased science," Groat said in written testimony submitted to the panel. "Anything that casts aspersions on that reputation disturbs us greatly. We, as do you, look forward the to completion of the ongoing investigations to fully determine the impacts and appropriate responses."
Groat plans to accept appointments as the Jackson Chairman in energy and mineral resources in the School of Geosciences and the founding director of the Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy at the University of Texas at Austin, according to the Interior Department.
Before his appointment as USGS Director, Groat was associate vice president for research and sponsored projects at the University of Texas at El Paso, following three years as director of the Center for Environmental Resource management. He was also director of the university's Environmental Science and Engineering Ph.D. Program and a Professor of Geological Sciences.
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Las Vegas SUN
June 10, 2005
Chief of U.S. Geological Survey resigning
Associated Press
LAS VEGAS (AP) - The U.S. Geological Survey director criticized since the disclosure that several agency scientists might have falsified documents about a planned Nevada nuclear waste repository is stepping down.
Charles G. Groat's resignation, announced Thursday in Washington, D.C., was not connected with the Yucca Mountain project, survey spokeswoman A.B. Wade said.
Groat will return effective June 17 to the University of Texas at Austin, where he once served as an associate geology professor and acting director of the Bureau of Economic Geology.
Interior Gale A. Norton praised Groat, who has headed the USGS since November 1998, for applying USGS science "to supporting important decisions regarding resource and environmental management and policy."
Groat has been under fire since he and Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman announced in March the discovery of e-mail messages written by USGS hydrologists between 1998 and 2000 discussing possible falsification of quality assurance documents on water infiltration research they did for the Yucca Mountain project.
The disclosures sparked ongoing investigations by Energy Department and Interior Department inspectors general, aided by the FBI, and by a U.S. House subcommittee headed by Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev.
Nevada lawmakers have criticized Groat for not taking immediate disciplinary action against the hydrologists, who remain at the agency, and for not turning over requested documents.
Groat expressed support for investigations to clear the USGS, which he said had a 125-year reputation for sound, unbiased science.
The Energy Department plans to seek a license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to entomb 77,000 tons of the nation's most radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain. Congress in 2002 approved putting the repository at the site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
A date for opening the repository has been pushed back from 2010 to 2012 or later following a federal court ruling that an Environmental Protection Agency radiation standard was insufficient, congressional budget cuts and the e-mail revelations.
John Arthur, a top Yucca Mountain project official, reported this week that the Energy Department has tentatively concluded that repository science was not compromised by the USGS scientists.
Groat will be the Jackson Chair in Energy and Mineral Resources in the School of Geosciences at the University of Texas, the Interior Department said. He also will direct the school's new Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy.
---On the Net:
Yucca Mountain project: http://www.ymp.gov
U.S. Geological Survey: http://www.usgs.gov
---Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal, http://www.lvrj.com
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Las Vegas Review Journal
June 10, 2005
U.S. Geological Survey chief resigns position
Yucca Mountain e-mail scandal put agency director in spotlight, but spokesman says departure unrelated to controversy
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- The director of the U.S. Geological Survey, put on the hot seat this spring when it was disclosed that several agency scientists might have falsified Yucca Mountain documents, has resigned the post, it was announced Thursday.
Charles G. Groat has accepted several academic appointments at the University of Texas at Austin, Interior Department officials said. His resignation is effective June 17.
Groat has headed the USGS since November 1998. The low-profile federal science agency was pushed into a spotlight in March when it was disclosed that hydrologists had written e-mails raising questions about scientific findings at the designated Nevada nuclear waste site.
Groat's departure "has nothing to do with Yucca Mountain," USGS spokeswoman A.B. Wade said.
"Positions were offered to him at the University of Texas," Wade said. "They've been courting Dr. Groat for a number of years, and they have apparently sweetened the pot enough where he found it hard to say no."
Along with Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, Groat in March announced the discovery of a cache of e-mail messages written by USGS hydrologists between 1998 and 2000 discussing possible falsification of quality assurance documents on water infiltration research they had conducted.
The disclosures rocked the Yucca program and sparked investigations, still ongoing, by Energy Department and Interior Department inspectors general, DOE managers and a U.S. House subcommittee headed by Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev.
At an April 5 House hearing, Groat and an Energy Department witness were grilled by Nevada lawmakers about the e-mail messages. Groat was criticized for not taking immediate disciplinary action against the hydrologists, who remain employed at the agency.
Groat expressed support for investigations to clear the reputation of the USGS, which he said had "a 125-year reputation for sound, unbiased science."
Porter said Thursday that the USGS under Groat's leadership "has not been cooperative" in supplying documents he requested concerning the e-mails and three USGS hydrologists who have been linked to the messages.
"We have gotten very little from USGS," Porter said. "Personally (Groat) offered cooperation, but right now we have not received everything we have requested. I'm looking forward to working with a new director."
Neither Porter nor USGS spokeswoman Wade could give a full accounting late Thursday of which documents the agency had and had not supplied.
Similarly, Porter said, the Energy Department also has not been forthcoming with requested documents. Nevada lawmakers and Bodman met last month but could not agree on a timetable for the paperwork to be supplied.
"There is definitely a concern that Charles Groat will take with him important knowledge regarding work at Yucca Mountain that appears to have been falsified," Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said in a prepared statement.
John Arthur, deputy director of the Yucca Mountain Project, reported this week that the DOE tentatively has concluded that repository science was not compromised by the USGS scientists, who in the e-mails discussed using "fudge factors" in preparing quality assurance documents.
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the USGS scientists were working under Energy Department supervision when they wrote the controversial e-mails.
"Very much to his credit as a scientist and public servant, Dr. Groat called for an independent commission to help uncover the extent of the damage that was done," Reid said.
Groat has accepted appointment at the University of Texas as the Jackson Chair in Energy and Mineral Resources in the School of Geosciences. He also will be the founding director of the Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy.
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Pahrump Valley Times
June 10, 2005
PV fire season sparks meeting
CALVADA EYE, MEDICAL CENTER ALSO ON TODAY'S SPECIAL AGENDA
By Phillip Gomez and Doug McMurdo
PVT
Nye County commissioners had their regular Tuesday meeting in Tonopah cut short when a telephone contractor's digging tool nicked the county's fiber-optic telecommunications line connecting it with the outside world during an incident at Indian Springs. The commissioners' teleconference with Pahrump came crashing down along with every other communications device in Pahrump, Beatty and others north of Las Vegas.
As a result, the meeting's agenda has been postponed to next Tuesday at 8:30 a.m., again in Tonopah. For Pahrump residents, the teleconference will be held in Room "B" of the Ruud Community Center, since the main hall has already been spoken for by the Pahrump Town Board.
Today, at 8:30 a.m. in Tonopah, and by teleconference with Pahrump at the community center, the commissioners are meeting to deal with three vital issues to the community.
First, the increased threat of brushfires in the Pahrump Valley has led to a decision to declare a state of fire emergency and enact a brushfire and weed abatement program, to be funded initially by $750,000 appropriated from the county's PETT fund.
PETT is the money Nye County receives from the Department of Energy for the Yucca Mountain project.
To be authorized are the purchase of two water tanker trucks, 10 radios, radio chargers and batteries, as well as other fire suppression equipment, clothing and gear. Also on the agenda is the funding and implementation of a public education and media program on fire safety.
Second, the commissioners have received an offer to purchase the Calvada Eye, which they recently purchased themselves less than a year ago for $3.2 million. The agenda item calls for drafting a resolution declaring the county's intent to sell the property at auction, listing the terms and conditions of the sale.
Also, today commissioners could approve a settlement offer in the Pahrump Medical Center case involving the bankrupt Preferred Equities Corporation, the developer of the various Calvada subdivisions in Pahrump and the company that provided the county with the land on which stands the long closed medical center.
The deed to the property, however, was encumbered by a reversionary clause that called for the return of the land should it not be used over a specific time period.
Bankruptcy attorneys for Preferred Equities Corporation, according to county officials, made an initial offer of $750,000 for the more than four acres involved. That figure was negotiated down to $525,000, a sum officials believe is fair given the fact Pahrump taxpayers have already invested roughly $5 million in Pahrump Medical Center.
The funding would come from a capital improvements account the commission established with this specific type of situation in mind. It is significant to note that if the settlement offer were accepted Pahrump taxpayers would hold a fee simple deed to the property, meaning there would be no encumbrances attached.
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Pahrump Valley Times
June 10, 2005
Do Over
Commission has to reschedule meeting
By Phillip Gomez
PVT
Due to the power blackout earlier this week, the Nye County Board of Commissioners meeting scheduled for June 7 will be held at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday in Tonopah. The meeting will likely be teleconferenced to the Bob Ruud Community Center, as usual, but in the event of technical difficulties with the equipment the commission conference will proceed in Tonopah where all the commissioners plan to convene.
The agenda has been modified to reflect items pulled from the previous agenda on June 7.
At 10 a.m. there will be a presentation of Nye County's parks and recreation department's projects in prior years, the costs and evaluations of previous awards.
At 1:30 p.m. a presentation by Dr. J. Russell Dyer, assistant deputy director for the federal Department of Energy's technical and regulatory programs office of repository development at Yucca Mountain. Russell is scheduled to present a status update on the project. Other DOE and Bechtel SAIC Co. officials are also expected to participate.
Other items scheduled include the following:
• Approval to enter into new service contracts with Southwest Environmental Service regarding the Tonopah municipal landfill for a cost of $134,486.
• Discussion and possible decision on appointing two people to the Federal Impacts Advisory Board; decision on appointing one person to the Pahrump Regional Planning Commission; decision on appointing one person to the Beatty Town Advisory Board; and decision to appoint two people to the Gabbs Town Advisory Board.
• Discussion, possible decision and direction to staff to proceed with the sale of federal Housing and Urban Development property located at 3232 Golden Mountain Lane in Tonopah.
The property was purchased by Nye County through the HUD Dollar Homes program. Proceeds from the sale of the property have been earmarked for the Tonopah Development Corporation after reimbursement of renovation costs done on the property.
• Discussion and possible decision on approval of the revised Nye County Community Protection Plan and printing of the final report.
• Discussion and possible decision to approve 10 professional service contracts in support of Nye County's Yucca Mountain project oversight program. The cumulative amount of the contracts comes to $310,796; the funding to pay them is derived from the Department of Energy.
• Discussion and possible decision to reclassify the position of manager at the Nye County Department of Natural Resources and Federal Facilities to director of the Nye County Nuclear Waste Repository Project office. Approval is also being sought for extensive recruitment to fill the position.
• In planning department items, Mountain Falls developers are asking for an extension of time to come to agreement with the Nye County School District and the Pahrump Valley Fire-Rescue Service on their development agreement; a status report and possible direction to staff on the development agreement with Beazer Homes for the Tesora subdivision in Pahrump; a status report and possible direction to staff on the development agreement with Concordia Pleasant Valley LLC for the Pleasant Valley subdivision south of Thousandaire Boulevard in Pahrump. The latter two items are scheduled for public hearings on June 22.
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New Scientist
June 10, 2005
Secret nuclear waste disposal sites revealed
Rob Edwards
The highly sensitive shortlist of 12 sites where the UK nuclear industry wanted to dispose of its dangerous radioactive waste has been unveiled after being kept a closely guarded state secret for more than 15 years.
New Scientist can reveal that the nuclear waste agency, Nirex, identified five sites in Scotland and seven in England as geologically suitable for a deep underground repository. The UK government was forced to reverse its prolonged refusal to publish the list by requests in January from New Scientist and others under the new Freedom of Information Act.
Although the list was drawn up in the late 1980s, some of the sites are likely to become candidates for waste disposal again in the future. For this reason, the release of the list is likely to reignite the ferocious debate over nuclear waste disposal.
"The geology in the UK has not changed," says Nirex. "So sites that were considered to be potentially suitable previously on geological grounds could be considered suitable in a future site-selection process."
Hot and high-level
Geologists agree that another attempt to find waste sites would be likely to end up with a similar list. "There will be overlaps," says Dave Holmes, director of environment and hazards at the British Geological Survey in Keyworth, Nottingham. "But it is unlikely that a new site-selection exercise would produce exactly the same shortlist of sites."
Nirex says that any new site-selection process would not begin with the old list, and points out that scientists' understanding of geology is now different.
The waste to be disposed of now also includes hot, high-level waste, which could require different rock properties. And new concerns about sea level rises in response to climate change could rule out some coastal sites.
"But what has not changed,’ says Chris Murray, Nirex's managing director, “is that the waste still exists and needs to be dealt with in a safe, environmentally sound and publicly acceptable way for the long-term. Responsibility lies with this generation to ensure this is done."
Weapons waste
More than 50 years ago, the UK was one of the first countries in the world to develop nuclear fission technology into bombs and power sources. But it is now one of the last to work out what to do with the large amounts of waste created, and has fallen behind other European countries and the US.
The US government already operates the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) for weapons waste in a salt formation 655 metres under the Chihuahuan Desert near Carlsbad in New Mexico. It has also chosen Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert as a potential repository for irradiated fuel from reactors.
Deep underground repositories are also under active investigation at sites in Finland, Switzerland, Sweden, Belgium and France. The consensus of scientists internationally is that burial in stable geological formations below 300 metres is likely to be the safest method of disposal in the long term.
Tiny islands
This is the option that has always been favoured by Nirex, but it has not yet been adopted by the UK government. Ministers are awaiting advice in a year's time from the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management on whether waste should be stored at the surface or buried.
The plan then is to work out how to select suitable locations. But that process has now been rudely interrupted by the release of the site shortlist.
The list of sites (in full below) includes two tiny, uninhabited Scottish islands, military land, areas by nuclear power stations and even sites under the sea.
One of the sites, near the Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria, was eventually chosen by Nirex, but it was rejected by the government in 1997 after a public inquiry suggested Nirex's case was scientifically flawed.
Sites shortlisted by Nirex as potential nuclear waste dumps in the late 1980s:
Adjacent to Bradwell nuclear power station in Essex
Ministry of Defence land on Potton Island, 8 km from Southend on Sea. Essex
Under the North Sea, accessed from the port at Redcar, Yorkshire
Under the sea between the Inner Hebrides and Northern Ireland, accessed from the port at Hunterston in North Ayrshire
Killingholme, South Humberside
Ministry of Defence training area, Stanford, Norfolk
Adjacent to Dounreay nuclear plant in Caithness
Two sites near the Sellafield nuclear plant in Cumbria
Altnabreac in Caithness 18 km south of Dounreay
Fuday, small, uninhabited island north of Barra in the Western Isles
Sandray, small, uninhabited island south of Barra in the Western Isles
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Las Vegas SUN
June 09, 2005
Lawmakers want temporary and permanent nuke sites
By Benjamin Grove
<grove@lasvegassun.com>
Sun Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- The plan pending in the House to pursue interim nuclear waste sites has not dimmed enthusiasm among lawmakers for the proposed permanent repository at Yucca Mountain, a key lawmaker said today.
Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, chairman of the House Energy Committee and a leading pro-Yucca lawmaker, told several reporters today that it was "common sense" to establish temporary waste sites for radioactive material that has been piling up for years at the nation's 103 active commercial nuclear reactors.
Congress should pursue interim storage sites as well as the Yucca repository because delays continue to snare progress at Yucca, Barton said.
Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, this year inserted $10 million for interim sites into a House energy and water appropriations bill so that Congress could begin work to establish interim sites, as early as next year. The Senate has not acted on the proposal.
The action amounted to a new, additional approach to solving the nation's long-lingering problem of high-level nuclear waste, at a time when nuclear power industry officials aim to begin constructing a new generation of U.S. plants.
"It's time to rethink our approach to dealing with spent fuel," Hobson, chairman of the House Appropriations Energy and Water subcommittee, said last month. "It's irresponsible the policies we have now. It delays us."
Hobson emphasized that the interim plan in no way suggests that lawmakers are stepping back from their long battle to establish a permanent site at Yucca.
Congress in 1987 deemed Yucca as the site most suitable for a national repository. Congress officially approved the site in 2002, as did President Bush. Nuclear plant operators have been vocal supporters of Yucca, and they have long prodded the government with lawsuits to begin hauling their waste away, as promised by Congress.
Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman has made it clear he is focused on obtaining a license for Yucca and constructing it. "There are lots of issues swirling around, but I intend to be single-minded on this," Bodman said last month.
Barton today also said he was committed to pursuing a long-standing proposal that would make it easier for the Energy Department to tap into a national nuclear waste fund to pay for Yucca. Currently lawmakers set a specific Yucca budget each year. Barton and other pro-Yucca lawmakers aim to change the law so that Yucca spending does not count toward the annual Energy Department budget cap.
Barton today said he aims to pursue the plan again after Congress has finished wrestling with a massive national energy plan bill. Congress has been haggling over the legislation for six years.
Barton, who will serve as chairman of the House-Senate panel that will meet to finalize the energy plan, said that he did not intend to introduce any Yucca-related legislation in the meetings. Barton said he did not "want to play games" with Yucca legislation that would jeopardize the energy plan in negotiations, given that Senate Minority Leader, D-Nev., opposes initiatives that would speed Yucca progress.
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Nevada Appeal
June 09, 2005
Rep. Angle announces run for Congress
Geoff dornan
Appeal Capitol Bureau
gdornan@nevadaappeal.com
Nevada Assemblywoman Sharron Angle, R-Reno, on Wednesday made official her bid to claim the congressional seat held by Jim Gibbons, R-Nev.
Angle, in her fourth two-year Assembly term, described herself as "one of Nevada's most conservative voices."
She will face at least two other Republicans in the primary for the seat opened by Gibbons' decision to run for governor. Secretary of State Dean Heller and Gibbons' wife, Dawn, are also running.
Asked what her biggest legislative accomplishments were, she cited the Nevada Reading Excellence Act, which seeks to train teachers in using phonics to teach reading to youngsters.
"I will be representing Nevada in Washington, D.C., the same way I have in Nevada," she said. "I stand for lower taxes and less regulation."
At a press conference held in a committee room of the Nevada Legislature, she proudly said she has consistently voted against taxes in her four terms in the Assembly.
But she admitted voting for this year's budget, - the largest in state history by a billion dollars, for the record $402.8 million capital construction budget and for the Assembly's "pork" bill containing more than $35 million in special projects.
"Sometimes there are thing you legitimately have to spend money on," she said.
She said she would also continue her effort to force a Nevada vote adopting California's tax cutting Proposition 13.
That effort started as part of her fight to reverse the Nevada Supreme Court vote setting aside a two-thirds majority requirement to raise taxes. While she said she voted for Gibbons in the last election, "I was a little disappointed he didn't come and help me shore that up."
She said she supports the U.S. Supreme Court decision saying federal authorities can arrest Nevadans even if they have medical cards allowing them to use marijuana because it's illegal under federal law. She said the state shouldn't violate federal law.
But she defended her vote just this week in favor of the Canadian prescription drug bill even though those drug imports are against federal law.
On Yucca Mountain, she said she agrees with 80 percent of Nevadans that it shouldn't be here.
"However, we're very pragmatic and I feel Yucca Mountain is a done deal," she said. "We kind of understand we don't have enough voices in Washington, D.C."
- Contact reporter Geoff Dornan at gdornan@nevadaappeal.com or 687-8750.
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Common Voice
June 9, 2005
Why the South for next repository?
Ron Bourgoin
Brian from Washington on June 3 asked why I expect the second national high-level nuclear waste burial site will come to the southeast. The second site is, by law, to be named as early as 2007.
The list of second geologic repositories contains sites in Minnesota, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Maine, Virginia, North Carolina, and Virginia.
The Canadian government has just released its proposed plans for the burial of highly radioactive wastes. Canada has made very special effort to select burial far away from the United States. Deep burial will be in the Canadian Shield, a massive rock structure way up north in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. [http://www.nwmo.ca/adx/asp/adxGetMedia.asp?DocID=1224,1026,20,1,Documents&MediaID=2341&Filename=NWMO_DSR_E ]
The report's title is "Choosing a Way Forward: The Future Management of Canada's Used Nuclear Fuel," which is 304 pages long.
The Minnesota, Wisconsin, Maine, and New Hampshire sites are too close to the Canadian border to place a high-level nuclear waste repository in either of those states. The Minnesota and Wisconsin sites, especially, are sitting on the Great Lakes.
The southeast, on the other hand, is far enough away from other countries to render the region attractive to the Department of Energy.
Brian suggested that Yucca Mountain could be expanded, but right now it appears doubtful Yucca will even open. He further suggests the federal government owns enough land in the western states to put a nuclear dump there, but the fact is those states aren't on the list of second repository sites.
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TomPaine
June 09, 2005
The Loyal Opposition
David Corn
The Yucca Mountain Option. The federal government is trying to build a storage facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada for the spent fuel from nuclear reactors. This material will have to be safeguarded for tens of thousands of years. The goal is to gather all that radioactive waste here until a better idea on what to do with the stuff comes along. So let's build a wing at Yucca Mountain that would house a Federal Depository of Unessential Blastocysts. (Okay, maybe the name needs a little tweaking.) The blastocysts would be maintained in frozen animation until a better arrangement could be found—even if that takes decades or centuries. In the meantime, they will be protected by the federal government. Sure, this will entail a cost. But remember how Bush asked American schoolchildren to donate money to help kids in Afghanistan? Perhaps he could encourage Americans to make a small contribution to the FDUB and adopt (figuratively) a blastocyst. The adopting person could give the blastocyst a name—question: can you tell the sex of a blastocyst?—and maybe receive a token like a bracelet. Admittedly, this is not a permanent solution, but figuring out tough ethical matters is, as Bush might say, hard work.
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MarketWatch
June 9, 2005
Exelon CEO sees natural gas, efficiency driving CO2 cuts
By Matthew Dalton
MarketWatch
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Increased use of natural gas and stricter energy efficiency standards are the main tools that will allow the U.S. to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions in the short term, Exelon Corp. (EXC) Chief Executive John W. Rowe said Thursday at a global warming conference here.
In the long term, the nation will have to build more nuclear plants to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases that scientists believe are causing the earth to warm, he said. But business and regulatory conditions must improve before Exelon would consider building a new plant, Rowe said. ...
"I don't want to build a new nuclear plant until the economics are right. I don't want to build a new plant until the politics are right," he said.
Exelon is the nation's largest generator of nuclear power and has lobbied Congress to establish mandatory limits on carbon dioxide emissions, a move that would bestow a cost advantage on the emissions-free power generated by Exelon's nuclear plants.
Rowe said that while he preferred the idea of a "carbon tax" on industrial facilities that generate greenhouse gases, he would also support creating a system of tradable carbon dioxide allowances that included a price cap on the allowances in case they became too expensive.
Despite being the favored path of environmental groups toward meeting greenhouse gas caps, Rowe said renewable generating technologies such as wind turbines, solar energy and biomass fuel aren't an economically viable core strategy for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
"We still have not seen the potential in renewables that we have seen in natural gas or energy efficiency," he said.
Environmental groups have opposed building new nuclear plants in favor of building more wind energy, though there have been rumblings from some groups that the construction of more nuclear plants should be supported as an alternative to burning fossil-fuel for generating electricity.
Relying more on natural gas-burning power plants to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will require the U.S. - and the Northeast in particular where gas supplies are tight - to build a number of new terminals to import liquefied natural gas, Rowe said.
"What's really needed is state and local action on LNG terminals," Rowe said. Local groups have bitterly opposed the construction of these facilities in their areas due to concerns about their safety and vulnerability to terrorist attack.
"This is one of those issues where public concerns are disproportionate to statistical risk," Rowe said.
Several lingering questions must be resolved before Exelon would consider building a new nuclear plant, he said.
"Above all, we have to have a real solution to the spent fuel problem," he said.
The U.S. Department of Energy for years has sought to build a national storage facility for nuclear power plant waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, but that effort has stalled. The nuclear power industry is now considering alternatives, such as storing waste in several high security casks around the country.
The industry also needs to address the concerns about a terrorist attack at nuclear plants, Rowe said.
"We have to have more terror-resistant designs than we do today," he said. Those designs are three to five years away from completion.
Rowe also said that wholesale electricity prices need to show more long-term strength to justify the construction of a nuclear plant.
Exelon is currently waiting for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's decision about whether its proposed merger with Public Service Enterprises Group Inc. (PEG) can proceed or needs a further public hearing as some merger opponents have demanded. A hearing would likely delay the close of the merger for months to late 2006.
Rowe said that even if the FERC requires a hearing, the merger would proceed.
"The merger goes ahead," he said. "We do not flinch."
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Nuclear Engineering
June 08, 2005
NRC rejects low-level waste deregulation plans
Proposals that would have allowed certain types of low-level radioactive waste to be disposed of in sites other than licensed radioactive waste storage facilities have reportedly been rejected by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC).
The NRC unanimously rejected staff proposals that would have seen radioactive waste go to municipal landfills, used in roadbeds or recycled into consumer products. The so-called "Controlling the Disposition of Controlled Solids" proposals were aimed at relieving pressure on the four existing radioactive waste disposal sites in the USA by easing storage requirements and would have saved nuclear generators millions of dollars in disposal costs.
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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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