Yucca Mountain News Clips
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
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Las Vegas SUN
July 27, 2005
Nevada congressmen divided on energy bill
By Suzanne Struglinski <suzanne@lasvegassun.com>
Sun Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Nevada's congressional delegation is divided on the massive energy bill that could go to the floor of the Senate and House this week.
A key component of the bill, which was just approved by Senate and House negotiators, is more than $6 billion for new nuclear power plants and other nuclear programs.
Michele Boyd, legislative director of Public Citizen's Energy Program, said the bill's nuclear provisions not only mean more nuclear waste, but more pressure to complete the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said she will continue to oppose the bill.
"Buried in this bill are a few provisions that do seek to promote more renewable energy, but they pale in comparison to the mountain of tax breaks that will go to oil and gas producers who are already reaping record profits and to forms of energy that pollute the environment and create more deadly nuclear waste." Berkley said.
Berkley voted against the House version of the bill in April. Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., and Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., voted for it.
Exact language contained in the bill will not be public until the House and Senate staff complete a conference report, but lawmakers finished meeting early Tuesday morning.
Porter said "historically" there are a number of things in the previous versions of the bill that he has supported.
He said he is "very cognizant and concerned" about the potential for more nuclear waste and he still adamantly opposes Yucca.
Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., also will still support the bill. He is not opposed to nuclear power, spokeswoman Amy Maier said, however, he wants to see the nuclear waste problem addressed in a scientific and sound matter.
"That is not Yucca Mountain," she said. There are ways to reduce the amount of fuel and different ways to manage it than digging a hole and burying it, she said. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., voted in favor of the Senate version of the bill in June.
Reid has not said yet how he will vote on the final bill, spokeswoman Tessa Hafen said.
Hafen said the nuclear components of the final energy bill make Reid's effort to keep nuclear waste at power plants even more necessary.
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Inyo Register
July 27, 2005
House demands more answers on Yucca Mountain
Porter not buying argument that e-mails hinting at fudged data were equivalent of ‘water-cooler chatter'
By Suzanne Struglinski
Las Vegas Sun
WASHINGTON n Testimony given June 29 by a Yucca Mountain scientist at the center of the investigation into the alleged falsification of documents did little to help resolve the issue.
"We have really just begun," said Rep. Jon Porter (R-Nev.), chairman of the House subcommittee looking into the allegations. "I still think there are a lot of questions to be answered."
The June 29 congressional hearing seemed to further entrench the proponents and opponents of the planned nuclear waste repository 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, and about 15 miles from Death Valley in Inyo County, as the crow flies.
Porter and other Nevada officials say a series of e-mails sent between project scientists as many as 10 years ago raise serious questions about the scientific integrity of the project.
Scientists wrote about "fudging" work and made disparaging remarks about quality assurance. One e-mail suggested keeping two sets of documents n one for inspectors the other with the real data.
Project supporters, though, dismiss the e-mails and say any questions about the science will be answered when the Energy Department applies to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a license to build the repository.
"We don't lay out our safety case in e-mails," Yucca Mountain project spokesman Allen Benson said.
He said technical documents supporting the Energy Department's work on Yucca n not e-mails n will be evaluated by the commission.
Still, the e-mails paint a troubling picture. U.S. Geological Survey scientist Joe Hevesi wrote of being able to poke holes in the scientific work.
Hevesi had to be subpoenaed to testify before the House Federal Workforce and Agency Organization Subcommittee.
But he provided few answers.
He dismissed his remarks as "poor wording" or emotional responses. He and the Energy Department have described the e-mails as "water cooler chatter."
Porter said Hevesi's statements "absolutely" do not take away any of the e-mail's value in the fight against Yucca Mountain. He said the testimony would open the door for other aspects of his investigation.
Porter said Hevesi has agreed to meet with the subcommittee staff to answer at least 50 to 100 more questions. Two other scientists have also met with staff members. Porter said he would continue to put and would not hesitate to subpoena Energy Department documents or others involved with the e-mails.
Nevada officials have long criticized project management and the science supporting the work. Porter said he is concerned by the frustration Hevesi seemed to have with the department management and Hevesi's inability to recall why he would write, "Live by the sword, Die by the sword" in one message. Porter also found it hard to believe that Hevesi did not know anything about the "Tiger Teams" he referred to in several e-mails beyond that they were part of a review process.
"I am hoping for his sake he is telling us the truth," Porter said.
Joe Egan, a Washington attorney who handles Yucca issues for Nevada, said the full story would come out when the state challenges the Energy Department's license application. State officials expect to depose scientists and others involved during their challenge.
"This guy's deposition will be a lot more interesting," Egan said. "Clinton said he didn't have sex either."
Egan said a deposition is different than testifying before a congressional subcommittee. They are likely to go document by document and line by line asking what he may have falsified or changed. Egan noted that Porter does not have all the documents yet so it was hard to ask specific questions.
"We never got to the uncomfortable questions," Egan said. "We're lawyers, we're litigators, we can cross examine. We have much more time."
Until then, Porter will use his subcommittee's jurisdiction over all federal agencies and their employees to investigate the problem, which includes looking at data that was allegedly changed to support the Energy Department's position.
"The real question is, did in fact those findings that were changed, give the tools to DOE (the Energy Department), the Congress and the White House to make a decision that it was safe and based on sound science," Porter said in an interview. "I think those e-mails go to the genesis of the whole project and that is the mountain leaks, and it was chosen as the site because it didn't."
Porter continues to battle with the Energy Department over getting documents.
W. John Arthur, deputy director of the department's Office of Repository Development, said during the hearing that his appearance is part of the department's cooperation with the investigation. An e-mail from the Energy Department told Porter that he could go to the department headquarters to view certain documents.
Even when the department has turned over documents, they have been incomplete, Porter said. He asked for an organizational chart of employees from 1995 to today, and it was sent without names.
"I believe part of it is arrogance on the part of the Department of Energy because they have never really been questioned," Porter said. "I don't believe they have ever been questioned by Congress to this degree. I don't believe that they can find part of the documents that we've asked for, which is part of the management culture, but I think the bulk of it is arrogance."
He said he would like to see that information in the next two weeks or he may request another subpoena.
But site supporters say these issues should be dealt with in the licensing process.
Rod McCullum, senior project manager for waste at the Nuclear Energy Institute, the nuclear industry's trade group, said the e-mails are just a tiny portion of thousands of pages of documents related to the Yucca project.
He said there's nothing to support Porter's idea that the e-mails signify widespread problems with the project.
"Mr. Porter wants to get to the truth, the vehicle that takes us to the truth will be the licensing process," McCullum said. "The ultimate test if the science is correct is the licensing process."
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World Peace Herald
July 27, 2005
Ongoing challenges of nuke waste disposal
By Andrea R. Mihailescu
UPI Energy Correspondent
WASHINGTON -- As the United States, Russia and six other states look to construct international storage sites for spent nuclear fuel, risks still surround storage facilities.
"Electricity production at nuclear power plants will be up 100 to 200 percent by the middle of the century," according to estimates from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
Nuclear power plants will emerge in Nigeria, Morocco, Vietnam, Turkey, Poland as well as a number of other countries in the next 15 to 20 years.
But properly storing nuclear waste continues to be a challenge. Exelon Chief Executive Officer John Rowe said the United States is unlikely to construct new reactors until the industry has greater security about storage. His firm provided some 15 percent of U.S. nuclear energy.
The greater the amount of fuel at a site, greater is the risk of an accident.
"For all plants, that risk really doesn't change," David Lochbaum, nuclear safety engineer with the Union of Concern Scientists, a private nonprofit watchdog group, told North Carolina's News & Observer. "You have to store the spent fuel in the pool for the first five years. The consequences, however, are determined by how much spent fuel is in the pool. The more spent fuel, the greater the consequences will be."
Wet pool storage is higher risk than dry cask storage since radioactive fire poses greater risks to a spent fuel pool. Fire causes the container for the fuel to break and release radioactivity. "The fire propels that radioactivity far and wide and puts more people in harm's way," said Lochbaum. "The chances of a spent fuel accident are low, but the consequences are high."
While a wet pool has a capacity to hold hundreds and in some cases thousands of tons of spent fuel, dry cask hold some 20 tons. If an accident or act of terrorism hits a dry cask, the size of a radioactive cloud coming from a cask is much smaller than that coming from a spent fuel pool.
Because equipment is necessary to prevent overheating at a spent fuel pool, it is more likely to have a spent fuel problem than a dry cask accident. Risk is greater when plant owners do not keep spent fuel pools to the minimum level.
Lochbaum recommends transferring fuel that came out of a reactor more than five years ago into dry casks, which would reduce the spent fuel risk by maintaining minimum levels.
As the House-Senate conference committee negotiates an energy bill that includes several proposals to increase nuclear power plant construction, the lack of proper nuclear waste storage still remains, raising questions about nuclear security. Congress has been planning to store the country's nuclear waste in the Yucca Mountain in Nevada since the 1970s. One interim suggestion raised was to construct a series of dry casket storage facilities that would keep waste safe for some 100 years. But such temporary sites could be unpopular in communities where they would be located.
No country really has a long-term solution to nuclear waste disposal. France is looking to store waste for about 100 years in an interim site until deciding on a long-term repository while German plans to build a geological repository but has not yet opened one.
IAEA Deputy Director Yuri Sokolov said: "Demand for nuclear power reactors and nuclear fuel supplies is the greatest China, India and Southeast Asia in general."
The IAEA warned members about proper safekeeping and recycling of fuel supplies and its repatriation for safekeeping and recycling.
"Facilities for the civilized keeping and recycling of spent nuclear fuel should be created at international nuclear centers in the United States, Finland, Russia and some other countries where such technologies have been created and are at the highest level," said Sokolov.
Russian Atomic Energy Agency Head Alexander Rumyantsev said: "Such a center may incorporate fresh nuclear fuel storages, from where the fuel might be leaded to the user countries with newly-built nuclear power plants."
Rumyantsev argues centers could create an emergency reserve of fresh nuclear fuel in case of a suspension of commercial supplies to the countries whose nuclear power industry is in the development phase.
Under a U.S.-Russian agreement, the two sides held training exercises Tuesday to assess preparedness on unexpected potential damage to a facility with nuclear waste in the process of its transshipment from a technological platform to a ground for provisional storage. Observers from the United States, Norway and Sweden were present.
Waste will continue to be a problem. Britain uses an expensive process by repossessing its waste. The United States continues to use swimming pools to store fuel. Industry experts say the best alternative is geological storage which is a method of interring waste very deep.
After more than 50 years of nuclear power usage, the world has accumulated 200,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel of which, 70,000 tons has been processed while the rest is kept at nuclear power plants. This is fraught with possible risks if they are kept or recycled in incompetently or become available to international terrorists.
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TomPaine
July 27, 2005
A Nuclear Swindle
Wenonah Hauter
Wenonah Hauter is director of the energy program for Public Citizen, a Washington, D.C.-based public interest organization with 150,000 members.
In one of the biggest taxpayer bailouts in recent years, the energy bill about to pass out of Congress stands on the cusp of providing the nuclear industry and the oil industry, among others, with the sweetest deal that energy executives have seen in the last 50 years. Passage of this costly and flawed bill will prove to the American public that Congress cares more about rewarding business interests than protecting consumers—who will predictably suffer from higher energy bills and corporate abuse enabled by this legislation.
Despite cries for reduced foreign oil dependence, lower gas prices, strong global warming provisions and a general need to conserve energy, this bill instead reaches out to reward two industries that don´t deserve the gifts they´re being bestowed: the nuclear and oil industries. These industries serve as an example of how our energy future is being dictated by corporate interests, not common-sense policies that will ensure a healthier environment for generations to come. Like ‘Banana Republic´ officials on the take, Congress has accepted $90 million from these industries since 2001 in exchange for providing them with billions of dollars in subsidies and regulatory rollbacks.
To begin, the nuclear industry is on the edge of its seat, hoping to win billions in cradle-to-grave subsidies and incentives to build new nuclear reactors. The conference report thus far includes $7 billion in research, development and construction subsidies, with another $7.3 billion in tax breaks pending in the yet-to-be released tax package. Those dollars aside, the bill contains unlimited taxpayer-backed loan guarantees for the construction of new reactors and extends the industry´s limited liability in the case of an accident to new reactors. This bill contains just about every conceivable taxpayer subsidy and incentive for the 50-year-old nuclear industry to build new reactors.
Contrary to the public relations spin coming from the pro-nuclear lobby, nuclear energy is not the answer to climate change or energy independence. Its five fatal flaws are more than enough reason to vote against this dirty and expensive technology: Nuclear power is expensive and relies on massive taxpayer subsidies; heightens proliferation risks; produces radioactive waste that remains dangerous for hundreds of thousands of years; endangers public health and security with the threat of accidents or attacks; and continuously fails to adhere to adequate safety standards.
Given the latest revelations about data falsification in analyses of the proposed Yucca Mountain dump site—in addition to other numerous unresolved safety problems at the site—and the reports by the National Academy of Sciences and the Government Accountability Office pointing out security vulnerabilities of the highly radioactive waste stored at reactor sites, the government should not be promoting the construction of new reactors, which will only add to the nuclear waste problem.
Not to be outdone, however, is the oil industry, which also stands to gain enormous benefits from the pending energy bill, including a likely buffet of subsidies and tax breaks that are still in last-minute negotiations and haven´t yet been released to the public. One of its newer ventures is in liquefied natural gas, which is natural gas super-cooled into a liquid form. This is done to more easily transport natural gas to the United States from destinations not linked by pipeline. For example, importing natural gas from Canada can be accomplished by sending natural gas through a pipeline; importing natural gas from Indonesia, Nigeria or Norway must be done by transporting LNG by tanker. LNG can pose significant security and environmental hazards, particularly to coastal communities that house these facilities.
The energy bill limits the ability of states and local communities to have adequate say in how dangerous, proposed liquefied natural gas facilities are sited. Support for liquefied natural gas facilities on our coastlines is shortsighted because it fails to account for the harm it can do to consumers—both to their wallets and their security. Relying on LNG imports will make the United States more dependent on foreign sources of energy, particularly OPEC, which dominates the global LNG market. This would be a serious mistake at a time when experts warn us of the dangers of relying on other countries for our natural gas. Not only would it make us beholden to OPEC, but it would create a climate ripe for price gouging.
Lawmakers have one final opportunity to jettison this bill. This legislation is a poison pill for consumers, the environment and the economy, and lawmakers now have one final opportunity to spit it out.
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KSL Radio
July 27, 2005
Sen. Hatch's Terrorism Study Blocked
A proposal to require a terrorism-threat study before a private storage site for spent nuclear fuel could be licensed in Utah has stalled, The Salt Lake Tribune reported Wednesday.
(Jul 27, 2005) --SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- A proposal to require a terrorism-threat study before a private storage site for spent nuclear fuel could be licensed in Utah has stalled, The Salt Lake Tribune reported Wednesday.
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, planned to amend the national energy bill but said he reconsidered at the request of the Senate Energy Committee chairman after Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., objected to the proposal.
Hatch wanted to amend the bill to require completion of the terrorist study before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission could grant a license to Private Fuel Storage, a group of utilities that wants to store 44,000 tons of nuclear waste on the Goshute Indian reservation in Skull Valley, 45 miles southwest of Salt Lake City.
Hatch told The Tribune that Reid threatened to bring down the entire energy bill if Hatch's amendment was included, prompting committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., to ask Hatch on Monday night to drop the effort.
"I had the chairmen of both (the House and Senate committees) working with me, and Senator Reid misconstrued it and promised to stop the entire energy bill if that amendment was attached to it," Hatch said.
Reid's spokeswoman, Tessa Hafen, said the senator never threatened to block the entire energy bill. Reid had concerns about Hatch's amendment, believing it could encourage other amendments affecting plans for a permanent nuclear waste dump at Nevada's Yucca Mountain, which Reid is committed to stopping, she said.
"It could have opened up a can of worms as far as nuclear waste issues go," she said.
In the past two congressional sessions, Reid was among senators resisting Utah's efforts to designate the Cedar Mountain Wilderness Area near the reservation. The wilderness designation would prevent construction of a rail line across the wilderness area to ship nuclear waste to the proposed storage site.
Some in Utah's congressional delegation have suggested that Reid's opposition was a grudge against Hatch and Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, who voted to send the waste to Yucca Mountain.
Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, has once again included the wilderness language in a defense policy bill, which has passed the House and is now before the Senate.
People ask why the Utah delegation doesn't work with Sen. Reid on nuclear waste issues, Hatch said. "Sen. Reid clearly doesn't have Utah's interests in mind and, in my opinion, America's national security interest, for that matter," Hatch told The Tribune.
Reid has proposed an alternative to both the Goshute facility and Yucca Mountain. He suggests the Energy Department should store nuclear waste at the facilities where it is generated, but he has yet to introduce legislation to make such a policy change.
The NRC is in the final stages of its review before deciding whether to license the Utah storage site, where utilities' spent fuel would be held in steel and concrete canisters. A decision could come by the end of the summer. The state has said it will to go to court if the license is granted.
Hatch said he would keep working to get the Department of Homeland Security to study the Private Fuel Storage proposal.
"I believe if we're concerned about terrorism, then Homeland Security has to be involved in this, and I'm going to see that they are one way or the other," Hatch said.
(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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Salt Lake Tribune
July 27, 2005
Reid torpedoes Hatch's plan for terrorism study
Feud: The Utahn sought a check on the proposed Goshute N-waste site
By Robert Gehrke
The Salt Lake Tribune
WASHINGTON - Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has thwarted Sen. Orrin Hatch's plan to require a terrorism-threat study of a private nuclear waste site proposed for the Utah desert.
Hatch's Homeland Security proposal was stopped short Monday night because of objections raised by Reid, D-Nev.
It was the latest instance where the nuclear neighbors have been at odds in their fight to keep the waste out of their own backyards.
Hatch had planned to amend the Energy bill to require completion of the terrorist study before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission could grant a license to Private Fuel Storage, the group seeking to store 44,000 tons of nuclear waste in the state.
But Hatch said Reid threatened to bring down the entire Energy bill if Hatch's amendment was included, prompting Senate Energy Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., to ask Hatch late Monday to drop the effort.
"I had the chairmen of both [the House and Senate committees] working with me, and Senator Reid misconstrued it and promised to stop the entire Energy bill if that amendment was attached to it," Hatch said.
Reid's spokeswoman, Tessa Hafen, said the senator never threatened to block the entire Energy bill. Reid had concerns about Hatch's amendment, believing it could encourage other amendments affecting plans for a permanent waste dump in Yucca Mountain, Nev., which Reid is committed to stopping, she said.
"It could have opened up a can of worms as far as nuclear waste issues go," she said.
"His concern has always been about how the waste would be transported, so that's a concern of his, but it needs to be approached the right way," she said. "He just didn't feel that's the right way to do it."
It would not be the first time Reid has scuttled efforts by Utah's delegation to stall or halt the PFS site. In the past two Congresses, he was among senators resisting Utah's efforts to designate the Cedar Mountain Wilderness Area near the Skull Valley reservation.
The wilderness designation would prevent a rail line from being built across the wilderness area to ship nuclear waste to the proposed PFS site.
Some in Utah's congressional delegation have suggested that Reid's opposition was a grudge against Hatch and Sen. Bob Bennett, who voted to send the waste to Yucca Mountain.
Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, has once again included the wilderness language in a defense policy bill, which has passed the House and is now before the Senate, but Reid again opposes the measure.
"People ask why the Utah delegation doesn't work with Sen. Reid" on nuclear waste issues, Hatch said. "Sen. Reid clearly doesn't have Utah's interests in mind and, in my opinion, America's national security interest, for that matter."
Reid has proposed an alternative to both the Goshute facility and Yucca Mountain. He suggests the Energy Department should store nuclear waste at the facilities that generated it, but he has yet to introduce legislation to make such a policy change.
The NRC is in the final stages of its review before deciding whether to license the PFS site, which would store nuclear fuel in steel and concrete canisters. A decision could come by the end of the summer. The state has vowed to go to court if the license is granted.
Hatch said he would keep working to get the Department of Homeland Security to study the PFS proposal.
"I believe if we're concerned about terrorism, then Homeland Security has to be involved in this, and I'm going to see that they are one way or the other," Hatch said.
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Augusta Chronicle
July 27, 2005
DOE waste cleanup is behind schedule
By Josh Gelinas | South Carolina Bureau Chief
AIKEN - The Department of Energy is walking a tight rope as it tries to close a high-level waste tank at Savannah River Site for the first time since 1997.
The DOE gave plans to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in February that spell out how most of its 37 million gallons of waste would be processed and stored.
But it could take the commission two months or more to approve the plans, and DOE officials already concede that the agency will miss its October 2006 deadline to empty one of its 49 waste tanks by about three months, officials said Monday at an SRS Citizens Advisory Board meeting in Aiken.
The deadline was at one point set for early 2005 but has been pushed back, in part because of a federal lawsuit that challenged how the DOE plans to store waste.
Last year's National Defense Authorization Act cleared the way for the DOE to classify and determine how it will store radioactive byproducts from the Cold War, but for the first time the commission must review and approve the DOE's plans.
"We are both learning," said Terry Spears, director of DOE's salt processing division.
The two agencies are set to discuss waste storage plans today, and at least one commission official said they appear good to go.
"At this point, we haven't seen any particular show stoppers," said Scott Flanders, deputy director of the commission's division of waste management and environmental protection.
Mr. Spears said the current review shouldn't slow the DOE's long-term goal to have the tanks emptied by 2019. But even the slightest hiccup as officials try to rid SRS of nuclear waste can send ripples of concern through the community.
The site's tanks are aging - 24 of the original 51 tanks were built before 1960 and at least 13 leaks have been reported. As Michelle Sherritt put it, high-level waste at SRS is the "single largest environmental risk" to South Carolina.
Ms. Sherritt, the state Department of Health and Environmental Control's federal facilities liaison, said the DOE has yet to apply for an extension on their deadline but her agency was most concerned about "maintaining momentum toward closure."
"DHEC is watching it very closely," she said.
There are basically three forms of waste in the tanks, all of which resulted from weapons production from about 1950 to 1990: a peanut-butterlike sludge at the bottom of the tanks; solidified salt formations; and a dense liquid salt solution.
DOE officials say 10 percent of all the waste is considered high level. All of the sludge at the tanks' bottoms is considered lethal, and officials have been able to extract it from the tanks and vitrify it into glass since 1996.
But after closing just two of the waste tanks in 1997, the site stopped processing salt waste in 1998 because extraction equipment at the time proved too dangerous. The facility that will eventually extract salt waste won't be complete until after 2008, which forces the DOE to take interim steps to flush waste out of some tanks until the extraction factory is finished.
Once complete, the Salt Waste Processing Facility will divide high- and low-level wastes. The more potent of the two will be turned into glass, put into steel canisters and supposedly shipped to an out-of-state repository for permanent storage, presumably Yucca Mountain in Nevada, though safety concerns have delayed its 2012 opening.
The low-level waste will buried under ground in concrete bunkers, and less than 1 percent of all the waste will be left at the bottom of the storage tanks, where it will be covered in grout and buried.
Ridding Aiken County and the state of dangerous nuclear waste has become a hot-button issue for the county council, which has invited U.S. Sens. Jim DeMint and Lindsey Graham and U.S. Reps. Gresham Barrett and Joe Wilson to discuss the issue.
Councilman Chuck Smith said he was disappointed that the DOE is behind schedule.
"It's an indicator to me that there is complacency somewhere in the system, that we don't have the full support of the U.S. government to deal with this issue," he said.
Reach Josh Gelinas at (803) 648-1395, ext. 110, or josh.gelinas@augustachronicle.com
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Guardian
July 26, 2005
Lawmakers Near Agreement on Energy Bill
By H. JOSEF HEBERT
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - House and Senate negotiators are awaiting completion of an $11.5 billion tax package before giving final approval to an sweeping compromise energy bill that Congress hopes to send to President Bush by week's end.
The conferees approved the non-tax measures early Tuesday in a session that lasted well past midnight, maneuvering through dozens of amendments, including one aimed at blunting China's attempt to purchase U.S. energy companies.
Throughout the negotiations, conference leaders took precautions to avoid provisions that might prompt a Senate filibuster, which they feared would doom energy legislation as it did two years ago.
But Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., the Senate's chief negotiator, warned that a provision calling for an inventory of oil and gas resources in coastal waters - which conferees voted to keep in the bill - could prompt a filibuster attempt by Florida senators.
Still, he said, he's confident that will be overcome, although he said Senate approval might be delayed until Friday.
Congress has been thwarted repeatedly over the past four years in attempts to enact energy legislation, although Bush first called for a new national energy blueprint in 2001, only months after taking office.
With soaring gasoline and other energy prices, Bush challenged Congress to give him a bill before it begins its August recess. Even so, Bush and the lawmakers acknowledged the bill includes little, if anything, to reduce gasoline or other energy costs in the short term.
The broad legislation includes measures to spur construction of new nuclear power plants, promote ways to reduce pollution from coal and provides a boon to farmers by requiring refiners to double the use of corn-based ethanol in gasoline to 7.5 billion gallons a year by 2012.
It also would:
- Provide subsidies and tax breaks for wind, geothermal and solar industries.
- Require new efficiency standards for commercial appliances from air conditioners to refrigerators.
- Extend daylight saving time by a month to save energy.
- Require utilities to meet federal reliability standards for the electric transmission grid, hoping to avoid future blackouts such as struck in the summer of 2003.
- Eases the way for more imports of liquefied natural gas by giving federal regulators final say over import terminals.
- Provides loan guarantees and other subsidies for clean energy technologies and new nuclear reactors. It would authorize a $1.8 billion program to promote clean coal technologies.
Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, the conference chairman, called the legislation ``the most comprehensive energy bill in the last 30 or 40 years.''
But some Democrats criticized the bill for providing cash-flush energy companies a mountain of tax subsidies, loan guarantees and support such as help to pay for deep-water oil exploration and drilling.
``These are the wealthiest companies in America. We shouldn't be subsidizing them,'' complained Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass.
Responding to a Chinese company's recent move to buy California-based Unocal, the conferees including a provision to require the government to wait for completion of a 120-day security review by the Pentagon and other agencies before the government's Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States can trigger its formal review.
``I think we ought to slow things down,'' Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said, joining House conferees in strong support of the measure.
The provision, opposed by the White House, reflected the serious concern by many in Congress over China's attempt to buy California-based Unocal, or other U.S. energy companies.
Working well past midnight, the conferees addressed dozens of amendments to the wide-ranging bill.
Separately, congressional tax writers were expected to finish an energy package expected to cost about $11.5 billion in tax breaks for both energy production and conservation. The tax discussions have been behind closed doors and no details were available.
Some lawmakers said the bill should have included more to promote energy savings.
Dorgan tried to include a Senate-approved measure that would have required the president to develop a program to reduce future oil use by 1 million barrels a day. It was rejected.
An attempt by Markey to strip from the bill loan guarantees for new energy technologies, including development of the next generation of nuclear reactors also failed.
The conferees approved a White House proposal to provide ``risk insurance'' against regulatory delays for companies that want to build a new nuclear power plant. The measure, highlighted by Bush in a speech last April, would apply for the first six reactors built.
The requirement for an inventory of offshore oil and gas resources was criticized as a prelude to drilling in coastal waters now off limits including off Florida.
``This is the first step to oil drilling in areas now off limits,'' said Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif. Supporters of the measure argued the government and industry should know what resources are available even if drilling isn't planned.
One of the most contentious environmental issues of past energy debates, whether to drill for oil in an Alaska wildlife refuge, became a non-issue this time. The House approved such drilling, but the Senate ignored the issue. It was not included.
Another thorny issue, involving product liability protection for makers of the gasoline additive MTBE, was resolved when House conferees abandoned the measure.
On the Net:
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee: http://energy.senate.gov/public/
House Energy and Commerce Committee: http://energycommerce.house.gov/
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Political Affairs Magazine
July 26, 2005
How to Lobby Congress With a Hammer
By David Swanson
Over 100 people, few if any of them employed by the corporate media, filled a press conference room in the US Capitol on Monday to hear artists, advocates, and experts speak against the current energy bill and against a proposal to dump the nation's nuclear waste on the land of a native American tribe in Utah.
Congressman Dennis Kucinich opened the proceedings, welcomed the speakers, and began by denouncing the activities of the Private Fuel Storage Limited Liability Consortium (PFS), which has proposed this latest "solution" to the problem of nuclear waste. Did you know these matters were being handled by a private organization AND that it conveniently has LIMITED liability?
Kucinich called PFS's plan "unjust, dangerous, and unnecessary." He said it violates the rights of the tribe whose land is thus ruined, and puts the whole country at risk of a catastrophe in the transportation of the waste to Utah. He said that 60 members of Congress had written to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission about this, and have yet to receive any response.
Kucinich spoke also of this country's long history of abusing the rights of native Americans and urged those listening to move beyond that history.
Navin Nayak of the US Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) spoke next and MC'd the event. "The U.S. Congress," he said, "stands on the precipice of passing an energy bill that would reproduce the mistakes of the past 50 years." From 1950 to 1997, he said, the federal government has spent $500 billion subsidizing fossil fuels and nuclear power, but only $25 billion on renewables.
Despite that, Nayak pointed out, wind power is the fastest growing power globally, and the cost of it has fallen by 80 percent in recent years.
The energy bill now under consideration would give billions to nuclear energy and subsidize the building of new plants, something we haven't done for 30 years, Nayak said.
The first speaker Nayak introduced set a tone of serious dedication and sacrifice. He was actor and activist James Cromwell, and he said that if anyone tries to move 44 thousand metric tons of nuclear waste across the country, "It's going to be blocked, the same way it was in Germany. But in this country, to stand in front of those trains, as I will be doing, is a violation of the PATRIOT Act and it is an act of terrorism and punishable by life in prison."
Cromwell seemed confident that others, young and old, would stand with him in front of the trains. He said that young people would not allow the country's future to be put at risk by nuclear waste. "It's our children and our children's children who will be affected by this technology, and it is up to us to stop it. I hope you will join us."
Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls spoke next. She said that the Indigo Girls have been a part of a campaign called Honor the Earth, and have worked on this issue with Winona LaDuke since 1992. Back then, she said, they opposed a bill that they called "Mobile Chernobyl," which would have transported the waste to Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
"When that took too long to work out," she said, "they created this limited liability consortium (PFS) so as not to have the liability that they should… No one wants the nuclear waste, and we're targeting minority communities with it. We need to stop producing it."
Ray pointed out that Yucca Mountain is in an earthquake zone, but noted that Skull Valley, Utah, (the current site targeted) is near an Air Force bombing range.
Ray advocated wind turbines as a safe and profitable project for native Americans and others. "We oppose this energy bill," she said, "because of the subsidies to nuclear companies in it."
Nayak again spoke briefly and provided some more stats. Despite a lack of investment, he said, renewables and co-generation now produce 92 percent as much energy as nuclear, on a global basis. The US Department of Energy says that the US could get 400 percent of its electricity from renewables, in comparison to the 2.5 percent that we actually get.
Next to speak was Margene Bullcreek, founder of Ohngo Guadedah Devia, Skull Valley Goshute. "Our treaty protects our sovereignty as caretakers of our land," she said. "Help us stop this destruction, this genocide to our native people of this great nation that was founded on our indigenous land."
Nayak then cited a few more reasons to have strong doubts about the proposal before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to violate that sovereignty. There have, he noted, been no Congressional hearings on this important public question of whether to ship 44 thousand tons of nuclear waste through as many as 45 states and store it above ground. There has been no examination of the safety of this proposal. Within days, he said, we could have a decision from the NRC. "It is time for Congress to step in."
Emily Saliers f the Indigo Girls spoke very briefly and to the point: "Nuclear energy is not clean energy." If we don't change from nuclear power and fossil fuels to renewables, she said, "then every time we switch on a light we are complicit in injustice that affects people's lives."
Nayek added that the United States imports over 50 percent of its oil, and that the new energy bill would increase the nation's dependence on oil. Meanwhile, he said, over 90 percent of Americans support renewables and conservation as the top solution to our energy policy.
Longtime activist and former Green Party Vice Presidential candidate Winona LaDuke was unable to speak at this event because of a delayed flight.
The last to speak was musician, singer, song-writer Ani DiFranco.
The job of a poet or a singer, DiFranco said, is to draw connections. She was compelled, she said, "to speak one word: cancer." Cancer, she said, "is the physiological reaction to toxicity in our environment."
There is no barrel, DiFranco said, that can be guaranteed safely sealed. There is no safe way to ship nuclear waste. "We all know there's a bit of a farce in this policy."
"This week," DiFranco urged those in attendance, "rather than writing a check to the Leukemia Foundation, we can stop the Skull Valley dump and stop this energy bill. And we can invest in renewable energy that is out there waiting for us to use it….
"Radioactive waste is not clean. Therefore, anyone who is trying to tell me that nuclear power is clean is lying to me. And subsidizing nuclear power is absolutely a deal breaker in a twenty-first century energy policy."
DiFranco probably received the most applause of all the speakers, with the exception of Congressman Kucinich's closing remarks – see below.
Nayek concluded the prepared agenda of the press conference by noting that if an energy bill passes this week, it will likely set our energy policy for a decade. This policy will not focus on renewables. Focusing on renewables could create hundreds of thousands of new jobs, save consumers dollars, and protect public health.
Nayek asked for questions from the media, and seeing none, asked for questions from others. A man asked about the likelihood of the energy bill passing.
A committee of the House of Representatives, Nayek said, is trying to complete a bill tonight – likely a 1,000 page bill – and a vote in the House may come tomorrow, which is when the public will first see the bill. A Senate vote could come as early as Thursday.
Kucinich rose to the podium to point out, in addition, that most Congress Members will not have seen the bill before it comes to the floor.
Expert speakers who were available for questions rose and spoke briefly, one after another, because there were few reporters present, and none with questions.
Kevin Kamps of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service said that the federal government until 1994 and the PFS since then have targeted 60 native American tribes for the dumping of waste, 50 of which have fought it off. In the current case, he said, there are strong arguments against the proposed site.
For one thing, 7,000 F-16 fighter jets fly over every year. "What if one crashes?" The NRC, he said, had ruled, 2 to 1, that such a crash would not release radiation above an acceptable level. The two Yes votes came from lawyers, said Kamps, while a blistering dissent was penned by an engineer who focused on numerous defects in the storage containers.
In addition, Kamps said, Cedar Mountains Wilderness Area, sacred ground, would have a rail line put through it.
And, the Bureau of Indian Affairs approved the lease agreement for this dump in three days. In response to a Freedom of Information Act request from Public Citizen, the BIA said it had no related documents whatsoever.
Pete Downing of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance added that House has passed a bill as part of a defense bill to protect Utah from this dump, a bi-partisan measure that focused on public safety and military safety. It remains to be seen what the Senate will do.
Nayak said that stopping the energy bill, on the other hand, would likely require 41 senators to stand up and protect us with a filibuster.
Kucinich gave a stirring speech to conclude the event. He referred to Conscience and Consciousness, two words that DiFranco had used.
"The American people," he said, "are waiting to be inspired and moved. Will $2 per gallon move them? Maybe not. Will $3? $4? Probably not.
"But if people make connections between a war against innocent people in Iraq and our energy policy, between moving tons of nuclear waste and our so-called energy policy, between the production of nuclear weapons and our failed energy policy….
"We're not just talking about protecting sacred land. The whole earth is sacred. The whole earth is sacred! We're talking about reclaiming our humanity.
"Jamie Cromwell talked about people putting themselves on the line. We have to shake the conscience of this country! WAKE UP! That's what we ought to be telling this country, and we are the ones. We are the messengers. We are the messengers."
David Swanson is a board member of Progressive Democrats of America. http://www.pdamerica.org.
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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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