Yucca Mountain News Clips
Wednesday, October 26, 2005
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Las Vegas SUN
October 26, 2005
'Clean' plan for Yucca repackaged
DOE proposal unveiled
By Suzanne Struglinski <suzanne@lasvegassun.com>
Sun Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department's plan to make Yucca Mountain a "clean" nuclear waste dump is just more of the same old garbage to project critics.
Energy officials on Tuesday unveiled a plan to make the overdue and overbudget project "simple, safer and more cost-effective."
Paul Golan, the project's acting director, said the plans would simplify the "design, licensing and construction" of the dump. If that goes as planned, it would presumably speed up the department's work and ease the burden the department will face when it goes to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a license.
Under the plan, the department would have waste sealed in standardized containers at the nuclear power plants. That would eliminate the need for a one-of-a-kind "multibillion-dollar" facility at Yucca Mountain to do so, leaving the site "primarily clean or 'noncontaminated,' " according to the department.
Golan said he was "personally very excited about this new path forward."
Nevada officials called the plan "desperate" and predicted a long delay in opening a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain.
"After 20 years of work, DOE's (the Energy Department's) big announcement is that they will now start working toward a clean, uncontaminated site," Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., said in a statement. "We have said all along the project is not safe and the science is bad, but never thought DOE would actually admit it."
The department's plan, though, may be part of a bigger proposal to push the project forward.
According to the energy trade publication International Radioactive Exchange, Golan wrote a memo Oct. 13 outlining an ambitious plan to move the project forward with legislation that would:
* Make it easier to fund the Yucca Mountain budget by removing it from the competitive congressional process;
* Allow building of two "aging pads" -- temporary above-ground storage facilities -- one on the Nevada Test Site and one at a site to be named later;
* Allow the construction of the aging pads without an environmental impact statement or a permit from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Department officials on Tuesday said they had not sent any proposed legislation to Congress and said they were concentrating on Golan's plan to make Yucca "clean." A spokesman for Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said department officials disputed the report in the trade publication.
It probably would be difficult to move those proposals through Congress. The move to make it easier to fund Yucca Mountain has been shot down in Congress on previous attempts. And Reid has been a strong opponent and has deftly slowed Yucca legislation in the past.
The department did not have an estimate for how long the new casks would take to design or how much time this would add to the project's timeline.
The Energy Department asked Yucca contractor Bechtel SAIC to come up with a conceptual design for the new facilities. That plan will then be taken to an Energy Department advisory board for approval.
If that moves forward, the department would design stronger containers -- essentially double-bagging -- the nuclear waste. Those new containers would then be put in an extra container for shipping and a different container for burial at Yucca Mountain.
The big difference in the plans is that the containers won't be opened at Yucca Mountain.
At first glance, adding another cask layer to waste may seem to diminish some of Nevada's key arguments against the site: Canister corrosion inside the mountain will lead to radiation leaks, and waste is dangerous to transport.
But attorney Joe Egan, who handles Yucca legal issues for Nevada, said the state's own experiments have found that any metal inside the mountain will corrode.
"It's just two layers to corrode instead of one," Egan said.
He said this plan proves the Energy Department knows the project "is in deep trouble."
"They wouldn't be doing this if it wasn't," Egan said. The new cask idea is "sort of like the Mars program: It's a nice thought, but there are so many utopian aspects to it, it's hard to believe it will ever happen."
The Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's interest group and a top Yucca advocate, supports the change in concept, spokeswoman Trish Conrad said.
Berkley, however, blasted the Energy Department's proposal.
"Calling plans to dump radioactive garbage in Nevada 'clean' is an insult to the intelligence of families in the Silver State and ignores the fact that nuclear waste is one of the deadliest substances on Earth," Berkley said in a statement.
"Regardless of how they repackage this waste, at the end of the day, it's still going to be dumped in Nevada, and it's still going to threaten the lives of millions of Americans living along transportation routes."
Suzanne Struglinski can be reached at (202) 662-7245 or by at suzanne@lasvegassun.com.
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Las Vegas SUN
October 26, 2005
Letter: Study shows potential for rail disaster
Regarding the Las Vegas Sun's Oct. 21 story, "Rail ban could increase danger":
Comparing shipments of highly radioactive waste to shipments of other hazardous materials such as chlorine, Association of American Railroads President Edward Hamberger told the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee last week that "If there were to be a breach, it does not have the same consequence" and "There is no plume, and the immediate impact is not as great."
But if the accident or attack that causes the breach involves a high-temperature, long-duration fire -- all too possible in real-world train wrecks -- there very well could be a plume of radioactive smoke and catastrophic and long-term impacts downwind.
A state of Nevada-commissioned analysis of a 2001 train tunnel fire under downtown Baltimore estimated that, if irradiated nuclear fuel had been aboard, the container would have breached and large amounts of radioactivity would have escaped in the smoke.
Up to 50 people would have been exposed to enough radiation to doom them to eventual death by cancer. The cleanup would have cost $14 billion. If the cleanup was not done, 1,400 people would have eventually died from cancer after living in contaminated areas for just one year. After 50 years of living amid such radiation, over 28,000 people would have died of cancer.
Each of the thousands of rail casks bound for Yucca would hold more than 200 times the radioactive cesium -- which remains hazardous for centuries, is highly volatile in fires and lodges in human muscle such as the heart -- released by the Hiroshima atomic bomb.
Kevin Kamps Washington, D.C. Editor's note: The writer is a nuclear waste specialist for the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, a group that opposes the Yucca Mountain project.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
October 26, 2005
Canister changes proposed
DOE sees 'new path' for nuclear waste
By Keith Rogers
Review-Journal
Energy Department officials announced Tuesday they are switching gears in their effort to haul spent nuclear fuel to Yucca Mountain and dispose of it.
They said a design change using standardized containers is simpler and safer and avoids the need for repetitive handling of spent fuel assemblies. But critics say the new strategy is part of a ploy to sidestep the licensing process and eliminate scrutiny for building above-ground pads where the waste can cool.
"To me it's a smokescreen to cover up everything else that's gone wrong," said Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency chief Bob Loux, a leading critic of the Yucca Mountain Project.
The design change was outlined in a letter this month to prime contractor Bechtel SAIC and was heralded Tuesday by acting Civilian Radioactive Waste Management Director Paul Golan as a "new path (that) gives us simplification in design, licensing and construction, while increasing worker and public safety."
Under the old method, plans called for shipping spent fuel assemblies in various types of canisters to the repository, where workers "would handle 70,000 tons of spent fuel up to four separate times per fuel assembly," a statement announcing the new design read.
In a telephone interview Tuesday, Golan said the "new path" is different "relative to the one we're on today."
"We think it offers some advantages today over our current design," Golan said.
He said the new strategy "is probably as economical as the path we're on" but will be safer with more inherent quality controls, because packaging of the fuel assemblies will take place at the utilities that generated the fuel and know most about it.
But Loux said the "new path" is really an old path that a former energy secretary, retired Navy Adm. James Watkins, proposed in 1992.
"It now appears that a multiple purpose and standardized container system for spent fuel receipt, storage, transport and disposal can be developed to reduce costs (and) minimize required handling of spent fuel assemblies. ... Such a system would simplify the design of a storage facility," Watkins wrote in an attachment to a Dec. 17, 1992, letter to Sen. J. Bennett Johnston, D-La., then chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.
That path was not followed because it would have been too expensive and too difficult to haul such large containers to the mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, Loux said.
Loux cited Monday's special bulletin in a trade publication, "The International Radioactive Exchange," that claims DOE's new direction to develop multipurpose canisters is part of a strategy that includes constructing two above-ground pads, where much of the 77,000 tons of spent fuel and highly radioactive defense waste can be aged before entombing it inside a maze of tunnels in the mountain.
One of the "aging pads," would be at the Nevada Test Site, adjacent to the mountain. The Bush administration intends to propose legislation this fall, according to the trade publication, to exempt the pads from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's licensing process and allow them to be built without an environmental impact statement.
Referring to DOE officials, Loux said, "It's clear they can't do anything to play by the rules. I think this is moreover an attempt to divert attention from a completely failing program."
Golan said he had not seen the special bulletin from "The International Radioactive Exchange" and couldn't comment on it.
He acknowledged, however, that aging the fuel, or allowing the heat generated by the decaying spent fuel pellets to cool, has always been part of the Yucca Mountain plan.
"There will be fuel that has too much thermal heat, and we'll have to let that thermal heat dissipate before we put it into the repository," he said.
Golan said the project will still need a smaller, inert facility where damaged or "off-normal" fuel assemblies can be repackaged for disposal without oxidizing it. Fuel surrounded by damaged, metal cladding could trigger chemical reactions when exposed to the air, causing gases to escape and fuel pellets to oxidize into dispersible powders.
Powders released would cause high levels of contamination from the thousands of assemblies expected to arrive at Yucca Mountain damaged.
Nevada's senators were not impressed with DOE's new design plan.
"After 20 years of work, DOE's big announcement is that they will now start working towards a clean, uncontaminated site. We have said all along the project is not safe and the science is bad, but never thought DOE would actually admit it," Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said in a joint statement. "We certainly appreciate the likely decades-long delay this announcement means. But this proposal is just words and a made-up scenario with no substance or fact."
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UPI
October 26, 2005
Feds unveil Yucca Mountain cleanup plans
CARSON CITY, Nev., Oct. 26 (UPI) -- U.S. Energy Department officials have announced plans to make Yucca Mountain a "clean" nuclear waste dump, but Nevada officials aren't happy.
Paul Golan, the project's acting director, said the plans would simplify design, licensing and construction of the dump. The plans also would presumably ease the burden the department will face when it goes to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a license, the Las Vegas Sun reported Wednesday.
The Energy Department's plan would require nuclear waste to be sealed in standardized containers at nuclear power plants. That, said officials, would eliminate the need for a one-of-a-kind "multibillion-dollar" facility at Yucca Mountain to do so, leaving the site "primarily clean or non-contaminated."
Nevada officials told The Sun they view the plan as "desperate" and predict a long delay in opening a nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain.
Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., issued a statement saying, "Calling plans to dump radioactive garbage in Nevada 'clean' is an insult to the intelligence of families in the Silver State and ignores the fact that nuclear waste is one of the deadliest substances on Earth."
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Nuclear Engineering
October 26, 2005
Yucca Mountain repository to be simpler
The US Department of Energy´s (DoE's) Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM) has instructed its managing contractor to devise a plan to operate the Yucca Mountain repository as a primarily 'clean' or non-contaminated facility.
The direction for the change in design, outlined in a letter to Bechtel SAIC, will see most spent nuclear fuel sent to the repository in a standardised canister that would not require repetitive handling of fuel prior to disposal, the DoE said.
Previous plans called for shipping spent fuel assemblies in various types of canisters to the repository where workers would handle 70,000 tonnes of spent fuel up to four separate times per fuel assembly.
The improved design is intended to simplify fuel handling and the construction of the repository, while easing complexities of Yucca Mountain´s post-construction operations.
Switching to a clean facility frees the project from having to construct several spent fuel handling facilities and reduces the potential hazards caused by the oxidation of bare spent nuclear fuel during handling.
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Pahrump Valley Times
October 26, 2005
Dawn Gibbons officially enters race for congressional district
RENO - Former three-term Assemblywoman Dawn Gibbons last week announced that she would seek election to the Nevada's Second Congressional District seat.
Gibbons, 51, who was named Assemblywoman of the Year in 2001 by the Peace Officers Research Association of Nevada (PORAN), said that limiting federal spending, stopping illegal immigration, improving national security, and protecting the Social Security and Medicare systems would be the primary issues in her campaign.
Gibbons, a Republican, formed an exploratory committee earlier this year for the congressional post. "For many months, I have enjoyed traveling around all 17 counties of our state hearing the concerns of our residents. Nevadans share my concerns about rapidly increasing federal spending, the ever-increasing problem of illegal immigration, and protecting our nation and our borders. Nevadans also are focused on ensuring that Social Security is there for those who have worked and contributed to the retirement system.
"Federal government spending must be kept under control," said Gibbons. "Our deficit is nearing $8 trillion and that is not the legacy or bill that should be left to our children. We need to strengthen our resolve against spending that is wasteful, outrageous and unnecessary," Gibbons added, giving as an example the no-bid contracts that were recently awarded by FEMA in the wake of the hurricanes in the Gulf.
Gibbons, a former recipient of the Reno Business and Professional Woman of the Year Award, said, "As a businesswoman, I know that you don't get good value for your money if you don't shop for the best prices. Everyone who has ever run a business understands that, and government should as well."
Gibbons said that illegal immigration is not only a national security threat, but is also taxing our nation's healthcare system as well. "Because of our porous borders, last year alone almost a million people successfully entered our nation illegally. When they are treated at medical facilities and cannot pay, American taxpayers bear the cost through both higher taxes and in higher health care costs."
Regarding ensuring the solvency of Social Security, Gibbons has stated that "I will only support reforms that keep our Social Security system solvent and guarantee that people receive their benefits as promised."
Additional issues addressed by Gibbons include working with Nevada's Congressional delegation and state leaders to fight attempts to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, supporting federal legislation to limit eminent domain powers, and working with members of the Congressional Western Caucus to reduce federal ownership and control of western lands.
Gibbons enters the race with many endorsements, including the support of the incumbent, Congressman Jim Gibbons, her husband of almost 20 years. "Dawn understands our state and will make Nevadans proud to have her representing them in our nation's capital," Jim Gibbons stated, "The hard working citizens of Nevada will benefit from her dedicated service."
While traveling throughout Congressional District 2, Gibbons also received the endorsements of many local officials, including numerous mayors, sheriffs, district attorneys, school district superintendents, and other community leaders. Her Web site, www.dawngibbons.com, includes the names of hundreds of supporters.
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University of Wisconsin
October 26, 2005
Project could reduce U.S. inventory of spent nuclear fuel
by Renee Meiller
Hoping to reduce the nation's growing inventory of stored spent nuclear fuel, a group of nuclear engineering faculty, scientists and students from Big Ten universities, the University of Chicago and the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory will develop innovative nuclear fuel cycles that will recycle and dispose of this high-level radioactive material.
The group will base its studies in the Center for Advanced Nuclear Fuel-Cycles (CANF), a new initiative housed at Argonne. Co-directors at Argonne and UW-Madison will lead the center. The project also will provide valuable educational experience for the next generation of scientists and engineers.
Nuclear fuel used in current reactors has enormous available energy. As the fuel is used to produce electricity, only a fraction of this available energy is consumed, generating a small quantity of high-level radioactive waste within the solid fuel.
Currently, most spent nuclear fuel is stored temporarily in secure, specially designed pools at commercial reactors around the country, or in leak-tight steel casks housed in above-ground concrete vaults. When space is full, the fuel could end up at a commercial temporary-storage facility in Utah, or perhaps at the proposed Yucca Mountain high-level waste repository.
But these storage options are short-term approaches to dealing with the back-end of the nuclear fuel cycle, says Michael Corradini, a UW-Madison professor of engineering physics and the center's co-director. "We hope to develop a 'sustainable' fuel cycle-that is, an efficient, cost-effective way to reuse current spent nuclear fuel and minimize its byproducts," he says. "Advanced nuclear fuel cycles can be recycled as a source of available energy as demand for uranium increases."
Some countries, including Japan and France, currently reprocess their spent nuclear fuel using a process known as PUREX (plutonium and uranium recovery by extraction). The CANF team will seek to improve upon these separation and recycling processes. "The major difference is that we are looking for ways to successfully extract specific radioactive species for separate uses and separate disposal," says Corradini.
The researchers will tackle the problem in a number of ways. One initiative will use sophisticated computer models to perform comprehensive simulations to predict key physics processes. The group will collaborate with the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science to apply those tools to the nuclear fuel cycle. In addition, scientists will develop flexible fuel forms, unique materials and advanced chemical separation processes, enabling them to establish a fuel supply system that minimizes waste and the risk of proliferation.
A reduced proliferation risk is just one of the benefits of advanced nuclear fuel cycles, says Phillip Finck, deputy associate laboratory director at Argonne and the center's co-director. "They can significantly shorten the needed isolation time and reduce the amount of high-level waste housed in any repository," he says. "Ultimately, this should reduce the cost of the Yucca Mountain repository and may preclude the need for additional waste repositories."
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Lincoln County News
October 26, 2005
Maine Yankee Secures Storage Facility
By Greg Foster
Security continues to be an issue for Maine Yankee because of the spent nuclear fuel facility on the Bailey Point site in Wiscasset, so a new gatehouse is in place and manned now that the decommissioning project is virtually complete.
“We are completing the final setup on the remote gate controls and expect to shortly transition to a normally closed unmanned gate,’ said John Niles, installation manager.
Niles, a presenter for the company´s reconstituted Community Advisory Panel last Thursday at the Chewonki Foundation, informed the group that it is planning to remove the jersey barriers near the road this fall.
In the meantime, Maine Yankee is continuing to work with state and local response organizations to keep them updated on the status of the site.
Niles reported that the primary contents of the dirt and debris pile amounting to 44 million pounds requiring 225 railcars for shipment to a low level nuclear waste dump site out of state has been shipped offsite.
“We still have two cars loaded onsite that contain large concrete pieces, steel, or other pieces that couldn´t be mixed with the soil cars,’ he said.
Currently, Maine Yankee is in the process of surveying and cleaning up the footprint of the debris pile to be able to release it from a radiological restricted area, according to Niles.
“We expect to have two to three more cars of soil from this cleanup effort,’ he said. “Now that we are essentially done with the rail shipping we are working with Crooker & Sons to repair the road at the Rt. 144 rail crossing.’
The presence of the 64 concrete dry cask storage canisters on the facility continues to be a source of constant attention for the company, which has been pursuing other options besides the uncertain prospect of a national repository for high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada.
State nuclear safety advisor Charles Pray said the Yucca Mountain Task Force he is serving is pushing for the construction and operation of a safe and secured federal facility there for the nation´s spent nuclear fuel and other high-level radioactive waste in the most immediate time frame possible. However, the earliest the facility could begin to take in waste is 2012, and nuclear industry officials are skeptical about it.
The task force is a joint, bi-partisan national initiative of the Nuclear Waste Strategy Coalition, the U.S. Transport Council, the Decommissioning Plant Coalition, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and other organizations that collectively represent state regulatory authorities, nuclear utilities and businesses with principal operations throughout the United States.
Pray said the task force´s principal goals are to galvanize national grassroots for the purpose of obtaining a comprehensive funding solution, facilitating timely development of a final Yucca Mountain radiation standard, encouraging the U.S. Dept. of Energy to submit a highquality application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in a timely manner, ensuring high quality, accountability, and integrity of the program and facilitating a transportation and waste acceptance system that has public confidence.
One of the key activities of the task force he listed is reenergizing the national coalition that achieved approval in Congress to proceed with the repository program, which developed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.
The task force also is currently attempting to recruit task force chairs in the 41 states whose ratepayers have paid close to $25 billion into the Nuclear Waste Fund and to resolve longstanding impasse between the U.S. House and Senate leaders over fundamental funding and programmatic project issues, Pray said.
“It serves as a national clearing-house for other like-minded state and national organizations and elected officials and provides a fresh new voice to the critical importance of expeditious implementation of the Yucca Mountain project given national economic, energy security, as well as, national security considerations,’ he said.
Pat Dostie, state nuclear safety inspector, gave an update on the state´s confirmatory activities in testing the soil and water at the Bailey Point site, including the debris pile, which the company has shipped offsite, and has made a final site walk.
The NRC recently amended the company´s operating license to include only the immediate area of the storage facility and the facility itself thus releasing the rest of the land at Bailey Point for “unrestricted use’. However, the company must maintain security measures at Bailey Point because of the presence of the spent fuel as a possible terrorist target.
Mark Roberts, NRC senior health physicist, gave the CAP a report of its action releasing the land after inspection of final waste shipment documentation and activities of the storage installation, as well as a safety evaluation report.
The NRC based its final evaluations from remediation and final surveys conducted under the NRC-approved License Termination Plan, numerous performance-based inspections of remediation and final status survey activities, NRC contractor in process and confirmatory radiological surveys, and review of final status survey reports, Roberts said.
Regarding self-assessment, auditing, and correction actions, Roberts said, “Maine Yankee effectively utilized their condition reporting system to identify, evaluate, and correct identified deficiencies. Adequate records were maintained to document corrective actions.’
Roberts reported that the company developed and implemented a plan to relocate a large quantity of contaminated soil and debris to clear the site areas for final status surveys and is implementing an ongoing environmental radiation monitoring program for the storage facility.
The transportation of debris despite a problem with leaking of railcars recently was completed effectively in the NRC´s estimation, according to Roberts.
“Maine Yankee developed and implemented effective corrective actions to respond to the discovery of water leaking form gondola railcars,’ he said.
Among various items in the final status surveys, Roberts informed the CAP that the NRC has determined that random gamma walkover survey measurements were within the natural background levels.
In the future, Roberts said that NRC inspections will focus on operation of the storage facility regarding operations and maintenance, security, emergency preparedness, training, radiation protection, and fire protection.
Because the task of the CAP has been downscaled to focus mainly on the storage facility at Bailey Point, the meeting schedule diminished accordingly. The next CAP meeting is scheduled for sometime in March 2006.
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San Diego Union Tribune
October 25, 2005
DOE changes approach to transporting waste to Yucca Mountain
By Erica Werner
Associated Press
WASHINGTON – Nuclear waste bound for Yucca Mountain would be sealed in canisters that could be put directly into the ground, eliminating the need to repackage the radioactive material at the dump site in Nevada, the Energy Department said Tuesday.
The department's announcement marked a shift. Earlier plans called for large handling facilities at the desert site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas where spent nuclear reactor fuel would be transferred from transportation canisters into different containers for underground storage.
Under the new plan the spent fuel would be packaged at reactor sites and would not be exposed to the atmosphere again, potentially removing risks for workers and the public.
The change, announced by Paul Golan, acting director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, comes amid project delays and calls by some in Congress for the administration to supplement the dump with interim waste storage or to reprocess spent fuel.
"What we're trying to focus on is, no matter what happens, we still need a Yucca Mountain," Golan told reporters in a conference call. "And what we're tasked to do is make this the simplest, most straightforward, safest operation possible."
Golan couldn't say if the change would affect the timeline for the project, designed to hold 77,000 tons of highly radioactive used reactor fuel from commercial nuclear power plants and military installations.
The opening date already has slipped from 2010 to 2012 at earliest. Golan said it wasn't clear when the department would apply to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a license to operate the dump.
He also said it wasn't clear if the price tag of the $58 billion project would change. While costly onsite handling facilities would be eliminated, it would cost money to design, develop and license the new canisters.
The new plan follows a review Golan started after taking over the project in May. It also includes initiatives designed to improve project management and scientific controls, including directing a national laboratory to coordinate science on the project.
Yucca Mountain has suffered a series of budget shortages and delays. The government was forced to rewrite its radiation safety standards after a federal court threw out the first version, and the Energy Department is redoing some scientific models after e-mails surfaced last spring indicating government workers on the project might have falsified data.
Industry officials welcomed Tuesday's announcement as a sign of the Energy Department's commitment to the dump.
"It shows they're taking steps to make the program as efficient as possible, including enhancing safety," said Steve Kerekes, spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute. "This has the potential as well to send a positive message to Congress about the necessity to move forward with the program, including full funding."
Opponents said the new proposal is no improvement.
"Something like what DOE proposed today would mean a major reassessment of the proposed project," Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., said in a joint statement. "We certainly appreciate the likely decades-long delay this announcement means. But this proposal is just words and a made-up scenario with no substance or fact."
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Las Vegas SUN
October 25, 2005
Nevada delegation divided on best ways to cut federal spending
By Benjamin Grove <grove@lasvegassun.com>
Sun Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- With the cost of Hurricane Katrina expected to top $200 billion and the war in Iraq grinding on at $5.9 billion a month, congressional lawmakers are grappling with the thorny issue of spending cuts -- and Nevada's delegation is in the middle of the fray.
The House and Senate are to consider several budget options this week. The plans include a controversial proposal for an across-the-board spending reduction.
Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., ridicules that approach as "a nonthinking, Neanderthal way of budgeting."
In both parties, disagreements have sprouted over whether to exempt some spending areas, such as defense, veterans affairs and education. The proposal is aimed at "discretionary" budgets set each year by Congress, as opposed to mandatory spending programs such as Social Security and Medicare.
Republican leaders are considering other strategies, including a plan floated in the House last week to eliminate roughly 100 government programs. Another House proposal: Cut $50 billion in mandatory spending programs, including Medicaid.
The Senate this week could act on a $35 billion spending cut, including slicing roughly $10 billion from Medicare and Medicaid.
Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., plans to unveil his own spending reduction plan today. He and a "Senate Fiscal Watch Team" that includes six other Republicans, including Sen. John McCain of Arizona have been huddling for several weeks to draft a list of specific spending cuts.
At a press conference last month, Ensign and four of the senators backed a 5 percent across-the-board cut, as well as a two-year delay in the new Medicare prescription drug benefit program. He said the delay would not affect low-income seniors. They also advocated trimming "pork" projects from the $286 billion highway and transit bill approved in August.
"My colleagues and I want to make sure that our compassion for the hurricane victims is matched with a sense of responsibility for the health of our economy and future generations," Ensign said.
Nevada lawmakers agree on one program that could be slashed: the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain. The House approved $661 million for the dump, and the Senate approved $577 million, but Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada is negotiating to cut it down as much as he can.
Beyond Yucca, opinions diverge. Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., has been a longtime supporter of a 1 percent across-the-board cut because it would force programs to curb waste without cutting into benefits, spokeswoman Amy Spanbauer said.
"The goal is to rein in the bureaucracy," Spanbauer said.
Gibbons also supports a possible trim on farm subsidies, which by one estimate could save up to $10 billion. Gibbons also would consider NASA cuts, Spanbauer said.
Unlike Gibbons, Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., opposes across-the-board cuts in favor of more targeted waste trims, Porter said. He has introduced a bill to cut duplicative spending. There are three government agencies that inspect frozen pizzas, for example, Porter said.
"There are billions of dollars being wasted in the federal government," he said.
Democrats have said one way to save money is to scrap planned tax cuts, such as a $70 billion cut that would extend certain tax breaks, such as on capital gains. Porter and Gibbons support that tax cut.
Berkley generally opposes the tax cut as well as the $50 billion in cuts proposed by the Republicans, such as a reduction in spending on student loans.
"Why would you give tax cuts to fabulously wealthy people on the backs of college students?" Berkley said.
In the Senate, Reid has said he doesn't want to discuss which programs to slash until GOP leaders postpone tax cuts. Reid aides said that approving a proposed estate tax repeal would cut as much as $750 billion over 10 years from the federal budget.
"If Republicans can find the time and resources to spend billions on tax breaks for special interests, they certainly should be able to find the time and resources to help working Americans, too," Reid said last week.
Benjamin Grove can be reached at (202) 662-7436 or at grove@lasvegassun.com.
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Sarasota Herald-Tribune
October 24, 2005
Nuclear waste too great a hazard
The Bush administration and Gov. Jeb Bush are advocating the use of nuclear energy to solve our present energy crisis. Are they aware, or do they just not care about the health hazards of nuclear wastes? Some 30 years ago, this issue was brought to my attention.
A news item in your Oct. 12 newspaper reported, "Scientists and environmentalists said Tuesday \[Oct. 11\] that proposed standards for the federal government's Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage site in Nevada could have 'disastrous' public health effects for generations to come."
The Environmental Protection Agency was court-ordered to amend its standards on radiation emissions for the next 1 million years. Your story noted, "Under the amended standards, the Yucca Mountain site can emit up to 15 millirem of radiation per year for the first 10,000 years. However, from then on until 1 million years, the site will be allowed to radiate up to 350 millirem every year.
"A standard chest X-ray gives off 10 millirem every year.
"Kevin Kamps, a nuclear waste specialist with the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, said such high levels of radiation would create 'nightmarishly unacceptable' cancer rates in people living around Yucca Mountain."
New nuclear plants have not been built since the accident at Three Mile Island some years ago.
"Not in my back yard" has been the response of other communities as to permanent nuclear waste storage. At the present time, nuclear wastes are in many different localities in the United States. Even to have one location for permanent storage does not lessen the health danger for the rest of us. These wastes will be transported over our highways. We will all be exposed along the way to the added danger of cancer as well as the unthinkable possibility of nuclear accidents on our roads.
Explore solar and wind energy.
Patricia C. Haupt
Sarasota
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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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