Yucca Mountain News Clips - Thursday, April 6, 2006

Yucca Mountain News Clips
Thursday, April 6, 2006
---------------------------

Senator Harry Reid (D-NV)
April 06, 2006

Reid, Ensign Slam Yucca Mountain Bill

DOE Legislation Called “Dead on Arrival’

Washington, D.C. – Senators Harry Reid and John Ensign today criticized a new Yucca Mountain bill for being a continuation of the failed policies of the past.

The Department of Energy will send the legislation to Capitol Hill tomorrow morning. Lawmakers have not had a chance to study the bill yet, but Reid and Ensign say they know enough about it to realize that it would be harmful to Nevada.

“I received a call from a DOE official today. I didn´t hear all the details of the bill, but I heard enough to know there´s nothing new or original,’ said Reid. “The DOE is following the same road that has led them to countless health, safety, and scientific violations. This bill has no future; it´s dead when it gets here. We need to move away from these failed policies and towards on-site dry cask storage of nuclear waste. Dry cask storage would save our country billions of dollars and keep us safer. It´s already being used successfully at 34 nuclear sites.’

“The bill being brought before us is yet another attempt to twist the data and make Yucca Mountain appear scientifically sound,’ said Ensign. “This bill will go nowhere. The Nevada delegation is as united as ever on stopping Yucca Mountain and interim storage, and misguided legislation such as this will only bolster our cause. No doctored data, cartoon character or amount of scientific malpractice will make Yucca Mountain suitable.’

Reid and Ensign plan to study the bill closely in the next few days, but both said they expect the legislation to look even worse with more scrutiny.

---------------------------

Congresswoman Shelley Berkley (D-NV)
April 5, 2006

Bush Makes Yucca Mountain Water Grab

Berkley: "Vicious Assault on Nevadans"

(April 5, 2006 -- Washington, D.C.) Congresswoman Shelley Berkley (D-NV) today said that the Bush Administration's new plan to speed the opening of Yucca Mountain will destroy Nevada's ability to protect its water resources and limit the ability of the State to fight the proposed nuclear garbage dump.

"The Bush Administration's Yucca Mountain bill tramples all over Nevada's right to determine how water is used to benefit the families of our State. If President Bush and his allies succeed in passing this bill, Nevada will be unable to block the Department of Energy from using unlimited amounts of water for burying nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain," said Berkley.

"The State of Nevada has determined that Yucca Mountain threatens to pollute vital water sources and has denied DOE the ability to tap local water reserves. The Bush plan calls on Congress to take away Nevada's ability to block water from going to Yucca Mountain and would set a terrible precedent for destroying long-standing local control over one of our State's most important natural resources," Berkley said.

"The entire Yucca Mountain process has shown that President Bush and his Republican allies have absolutely no respect for Nevada's rights as a state, our laws, or the health and safety of our families," said Berkley.

"This is but one of the vicious assaults on Nevadans included in the Bush Yucca Mountain package, which also eliminates all restrictions on how much waste can be sent to Nevada and limits local challenges against the proposed dump and dangerous shipments to the facility," Berkley said.

SUMMARY OF WATER RIGHTS PROVISIONS:

The State of Nevada has determined that it is not in Nevada's public interest to allow the water to be used for the development of Yucca Mountain. This provision would give the Department of Energy access to the water it says is needed to run Yucca Mountain. The provision also would authorize the Secretary to obtain water rights, by purchase or otherwise, to carry out the Department's functions under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. This provision also bars Nevada from enacting laws to block DOE's use of water at the proposed dump site.

---------------------------

Las Vegas Review-Journal
April 06, 2006

Yucca Mountain: Measure a 'water grab'

Repository bill usurps rights, Nevadans say

By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- Nevada officials charged the Bush administration is mounting a "water grab" and other attacks on state powers in a bill sent Wednesday to Congress that seeks to speed the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.

The bill contains provisions that would streamline repository development and shorten a final license review that is required before nuclear waste could be moved to the site, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

In sending the bill to Capitol Hill, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman urged House and Senate leaders to "enact this important legislation as soon as possible" to promote expanded use of nuclear energy and "a more diverse fuel supply for the nation."

Nevada officials Wednesday focused on water rights, an issue in which they said the Energy Department appears to take the state head-on.

State engineers have denied applications for DOE to pump 140.2 million gallons annually from a groundwater basin in Nye County, but the new legislation would make doing that again harder, analysts said.

"The Bush plan calls on Congress to take away Nevada's ability to block water from going to Yucca Mountain and would set a terrible precedent for destroying long-standing local control over one of our state's most important natural resources," said Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev.

Lawyers for the state raised questions about hazardous-waste rules at the site, air quality regulation and state powers over transportation matters.

In those areas, they said, the bill appears to diminish the state's role in favor of federal management.

In some cases, they warned, the measure could hamper the ability of other states, not just Nevada, to exercise jurisdiction in nuclear waste matters.

"It's a nightmarish view, just about every part of it," said Marta Adams, senior deputy attorney general for the state.

DOE spokesman Craig Stevens said Yucca opponents were employing "hysteria and hyperbole" in criticizing the bill.

"The Department of Energy is committed to using only sound science to prepare Yucca Mountain for licensing, construction, and operation," Stevens said.

DOE officials could not provide responses to queries Wednesday night as to how the measure would affect state authorities.

On water, the bill declares that use of the resource for a repository "is declared to be a use that is beneficial to interstate commerce and that does not threaten to prove detrimental to the public interest.

"A state shall not enact or apply a law that discriminates against this use," the measure said.

Adams said the language seems no coincidence because those were the grounds under which state engineers Mike Turnipseed and Hugh Ricci denied DOE water applications in 2000 and 2003.

Stevens said the bill if passed would allow the government to reapply for water under more favorable conditions than before.

He said the bill probably would bring to an end a water rights lawsuit the department and the state have been waging for four years.

But Adams said the DOE's legislation would provoke new lawsuits from Nevada and probably other states concerned about precedent.

"It would buy years of litigation with us, and we do have a lot of precedent leaving water rights to the states," Adams said. "We also would have allies that would reject this wholesale attempt to tell a state what is and what is not in the public interest."

---------------------------

Las Vegas SUN
April 06, 2006

Editorial: Bush betrays Nevada again

Ignoring what he said as a candidate, the president goes whole hog on Yucca Mountain

It came as no real surprise Tuesday when the Bush administration announced plans for overstuffing Yucca Mountain with nuclear waste and for rendering all state and local transportation laws moot to expedite the delivery of the deadly material.

The Energy Department, at the bidding of President Bush, proposed to do away with the current limit on how much waste can be stored at Yucca if it opens. The department wants a "standard" that says fill up the mountain with as much as can possibly be crammed into it.

Since Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, was chosen in 1987 to be the sole site under consideration for a national nuclear-waste repository, a congressionally mandated cap of 77,000 tons has been in place. Bush's proposal reminds us of the saying "10 pounds in a five-pound bag." The tonnage would increase to at least 132,000 tons, and likely a lot more.

The administration has yet to develop a transportation plan for getting the waste to Yucca, but has said the routes would be "mostly rail" augmented by trucking routes. Under Bush's new proposals, the federal government would be able to pre-empt state and local transportation safety laws and use its own discretion in transporting the waste over the nation's highways and railroads.

Ineptness in federal planning for major events has already been demonstrated in Iraq and Hurricane Katrina. How safe can anyone feel knowing that the federal government wants to have total control over hauling the most deadly cargo known to man past their homes and communities?

Why none of this is a surprise dates to May 3, 2000. On that day, then-presidential candidate Bush wrote a letter to Gov. Kenny Guinn, finally stating his official position on Yucca Mountain. He wrote: "I believe sound science, and not politics, must prevail in the designation of any high-level nuclear-waste repository."

Bush continued, "As president, I would not sign legislation that would send nuclear waste to any proposed site unless it's been deemed scientifically safe. I also believe the federal government must work with the local and state governments that will be affected to address safety and transportation issues."

Of course, Bush went back on his word and signed legislation on July 23, 2002, making official the federal government's plan to develop and open Yucca Mountain. To this day Yucca Mountain has not been "deemed scientifically safe," and we do not believe any scientist concerned about his credibility would ever do so.

And now Bush is going back on his word to work with local governments on safety and transportation issues. We trust that our congressional delegation, whose members are unified in their belief that Yucca Mountain cannot ever be made safe, will prevail in blocking Bush's latest betrayal of Nevada.

---------------------------

KLAS-TV
April 06, 2006

Edward Lawrence, Reporter

Nevada Leadership Opposes Latest Yucca Mountain Bill

Nevada's congressional delegation is digging in and promising to kill the latest Yucca Mountain bill the Department of Energy, with the support of President Bush, sent to Congress on Wednesday.

The plan increases the amount of radioactive waste that could be stored at the site. The DOE also wants access to a special nuclear waste fund created to ensure adequate funding for Yucca Mountain.

Senators Harry Reid (D-NV) and John Ensign (R-NV) say their first line of defense will involve delay tactics to stall the efforts to move the project forward.

"There were many proposals that violated environmental laws," said Ensign. "Things the president was trying to do to speed up the process. Yucca Mountain is in trouble by itself. The good thing about this legislation is that they don't have any fast track authority to move it through the congress."

That bill is now in committee and it hasn't reached the full senate but already it's sparked some sharp criticism and some praise here in Southern Nevada.

Plain language in the bill gives the DOE more authority and takes away avenues the state used to block the project.

One of the most successful ways our representatives and senators delayed the project from opening was to cut the budget.

The new bill allows the DOE to tap into the nuclear waste fund. Every utility company with a nuclear power plant pays into the fund. The $700 million collected each year is designated for the operation of the Yucca Mountain waste repository.

The bill will allow the use of the money for building the waste site.

"That is one of the tools that frankly is now going to get wiped out it appears, said former Nevada governor and now nuclear energy consultant Bob List, who supports the Yucca Mountain project.

Peggy Maze Johnson opposes it. She runs Citizen Alert and joined with the state of Nevada to block the project.

"They want to tap into the fund and not have congress have any oversight, said Johnson.

The DOE says an appropriations committee will still have to approve the budget, but more than enough money to finish the project is already in the fund.

The bill would also remove a cap on how much nuclear waste can be stored at Yucca Mountain. It currently can store 77,000 tons, but could increase up to 132,000 tons would also take water rights from the state and give them to the department of energy. Yucca Mountain will still need a water use permit from the state but the law says the state couldn't deny it, and that the DOE can take all the water it needs to finish and run the nuclear repository.

The fight over the Yucca Mountain project is one that's going to stay in the headlines for the coming months and years. The DOE with the support of the Bush Administration want to entomb the nation's most highly radioactive nuclear material in one underground location at Yucca Mountain, which is about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

State leaders are fighting the project saying there are numerous health and safety dangers. The repository was supposed to open in 2010 but that won't happen because of work delays and investigations of allegations that scientists have falsified work to cover up problems.

---------------------------

KVBC
April 06, 2006

Nevada Senators react to Yucca Mountain bill

The Bush Administration wants to speed up getting nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain. The Energy Department wants to lift the 77,000 ton storage cap on the waste site.

Under the new Yucca Mountain bill, federal officials hoping to ship the nuclear waste by rail would be able to preempt state and local transportation regulations.

Nevada Senators Harry Reid and John Ensign say they are pleased with one aspect of the bill. A provision to allow interim storage of nuclear waste was not included in the bill. However, the senators criticized other aspects that would jeopardize the health and safety of Nevadans. The senators expect the bill to die in the senate.

---------------------------

Chemical & Engineering News
April 6, 2006

Yucca Mountain Overhaul Proposed

DOE sends Congress legislation to speed construction of a nuclear waste repository

Glenn Hess

The Bush Administration sent legislation to Capitol Hill April 5 that attempts to clear obstacles and speed licensing and construction of the contentious and long-delayed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada.

"In order to expand our nuclear-power-generating capacity, we need a safe, permanent, geologic repository for spent nuclear fuel at Yucca Mountain," says Department of Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman. "This proposed legislation will help provide stability, clarity, and predictability to the Yucca Mountain project and will help lay a solid foundation for America's future energy security."

Among other things, the bill would eliminate the current statutory 70,000-metric-ton cap on disposal capacity at the proposed Yucca Mountain facility, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. DOE says removing the cap would allow maximum use of the mountain's true technical capacity and safely isolate the nation´s entire commercial spent-nuclear-fuel inventory from existing reactors.

Currently, more than 50,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel is stored at more than 100 aboveground sites in 39 states. Every year, commercial U.S. reactors produce an additional 2,000 metric tons of spent fuel. “We believe it is very important to get Yucca Mountain open so we can start moving waste from communities around the country, and it is our view that is a widely held position," says Deputy Energy Secretary Clay Sell. "We can make the case to get the legislation passed."

In 2002, President George W. Bush and Congress agreed that Yucca Mountain was the best location for a permanent repository for the disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste. Federal officials had hoped to open the facility in 2010. But after a series of setbacks, 2020 is now the approximate target date.

The legislation contains most of what the nuclear power industry and other proponents say is necessary to get the repository back on track. "The bill will help achieve the opening of the Yucca Mountain repository and maximize the myriad benefits that the nation receives from nuclear energy for the long term," says Frank L. (Skip) Bowman, president of the Nuclear Energy Institute.

The legislation will be introduced in the Senate by Energy & Natural Resources Committee Chairman Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.). But the measure will face strong opposition from Yucca Mountain critics, including Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who says the bill is "not even on life support. It's dead when it gets here."

---------------------------

OpEdNews
April 06, 2006

Strange How This Generation Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

by Ron Fullwood

The Bush regime today took the lid off of their blueprint for rebuilding the U.S. nuclear weapons complex and declared their intention to put the cold-war facility back in the business of building bombs.

The nuclear hawks want the ability to produce 125 new nuclear bombs a year by 2022. How did it come to this?

The Bush administration's nuclear program is a shell game with their ambitions hidden within the Energy and Defense bills, most under the guise of research. Their proposals originated in a position paper which is referenced in the Energy Policy Act of 2003, entitled, "A Roadmap to Deploy New Nuclear Power Plants in the United States by 2010".

The nuclear industry, along with government supporters, developed a roadmap for the realization of these goals. They intend to portray nukes as a safe, clean alternative to CO2 based plants. The energy bill references the "Generation IV Nuclear Energy Systems Program."

This is a determined, deliberate hard sell to get the nation back in the nuclear game. The nuclear provisions in the Energy bill are a tough read but they are designed to confuse.

The legislation designates INEEL, The Idaho Engineering and Environmental Laboratories, as the lead facility for nuclear R&D. This has been the nation's primary lab for all of the nuclear madness since 1952. INEEL's primary function since the mid 70's was the clean-up of their own toxic waste. This clean-up is still going on. There is money allocated in this bill for that.

New plants are contemplated in the Energy and Defense legislation which would utilize the new generation of recycled nuclear fuels (MOX mixed-oxide, hydrogen based, depleted uranium, etc.). These centers will almost certainly be formatted to accommodate the next generation of nuclear weapons, such as, mini tactical nukes and bunker- busters.

INEEL will undoubtably be at the center of this effort.

At the end of the decade support for nuclear energy was on the decline because of waste and safety issues and disarmament. Right before Bush II got in office, the industry, still fat from clean-up money sought to bolster their flagging industry. (INEEL gets 70% of their funding for waste disposal) Waste storage had become so controversial that it had soured the public to the idea of more nukes and more nuke plants. (Yucca Mountain, storage sites in New Mexico, transportation, safety issues, etc.).

So, they began promoting the view that the 'spent' nuclear fuel from decommissioned weapons and nuclear power plants could be broken down and reconstituted for weapons (depleted uranium) and a new generation of nuclear plants which would accommodate (recycle) and use the waste instead of immobilizing it in glass and storing it.

The industry makes the dubious claim that the recycled waste keeps it out of the hands of terrorists and makes proliferation more difficult. It will more likely disperse the waste and create more opportunity for abuse or mishap. But, they are pressing on, perhaps emboldened by the lack of effective opposition, or maybe it's just the last gasp of a fracturing plutocracy as they rape the Treasury to benefit their military industry benafactors.

I often wonder why there was no massive outcry from the public as Bush packed the government with military industry cronies from the start of his administration. I'm equally puzzled why we seemed to shrug off the scrapping of a generation of nuclear disarmament without so much as a blink as the Bush regime continues to advance their plans for a new generation of nuclear weaponry with new justifications for its use.

People of my generation, and the ones before mine fought a valiant battle against nuclear weapons. Perhaps the desire grew out of our childhood spent crouching under our school desks every Wednesday or Friday as the air raid siren blared out its nuclear drill. 'Duck and cover!' counseled Bert the animated turtle in the '60's era filmstrip. I grew to fear and hate communists and dread the inevitable nuclear attack.

The Japanese started campaigning against nuclear weapons in 1946 after the U.S. dropped the bomb on them. Citizens' groups in Hiroshima started a mass movement after March 1954, when a U.S. nuclear test dropped radiation on the crew of a Japanese fishing boat, the Lucky Dragon, and citizens of Bikini. An petition was drawn up and signed by 32 million people in the world's largest anti-nuclear protest. In August 1955 the First World Conference Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs met in Hiroshima. The Japan Council Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs (Gensuikyo) was organized in Japan at the same time.

In the years that followed we saw the enactment of the Partial Test Ban Treaty; the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties (I and II); the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty; the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties (I and II); and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

These important restraints on the proliferation and spread of nuclear weaponry did not occur in a vacuum. These restraints were the result of direct action by communities and individuals engaging in massive, worldwide campaigns of public protest, over the strenuous objections of ruling parties and government powers. Notable among the modern nuclear resistors in the United States, included the Federation of American Scientists, the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE), Women Strike for Peace, Physicians for Social Responsibility, and the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign.

In 1980 Randall Caroline Forsberg, Executive Director of the Institute for Defense and Disarmament Studies, wrote the "Call to Halt the Nuclear Arms Race which launched the national Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign. In 1989 Forsberg briefed BushI and his Cabinet officials on US-Soviet arms control issues. In 1995 she was appointed by President Clinton to the Advisory Committee of the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. In March 1981, representatives from over 30 states met at Georgetown University in a campaign for a comprehensive nuclear freeze between the U.S. and Soviet Union.

Although Reagan deployed nuclear missiles to Western Europe during his term, in October 1983, he proposed eliminating all nuclear weapons in a speech in January 1984. Earlier, in April 1982, obviously affected by the Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign, he had pronounced that "a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. And, he also improbably declared, "To those who protest against nuclear war, I can only say: 'I'm with you!'"

Gorbachev subsequently initiated a unilateral Soviet nuclear testing moratorium and decided against building a Star Wars anti-missile system. Reagan refused to abandon the U.S. version of Star Wars, but the disarmament die had been cast. Gorbachev put the U.S. on the defensive by exercising what was termed the 'zero option', agreeing to remove all nuclear missiles from Europe.

In late 1984, twenty-two people got themselves arrested as they blocked the entrance to the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in Wake Forest, Illinois to protest U.S. warships in Central America and to protest the Navy´s part in spreading weapons and ammunition to the countries in the region. Sixteen went to trial, charges against eight were dropped and a ninth was dismissed. Seven protesters stood trial in the People v. Jarka No. 002170 in the Circuit Court of Lake County, Waukegan, Illinois.

After a one-week trial defendants were found “not guilty’ by the jury. The judge in the case, Alphonse F. Witt, gave the following instruction to the jury regarding international law:

— International law is binding on the United States and on the State of Illinois.

— The use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is a war crime or an attempted war crime because such use would violate international law by causing unnecessary suffering, failure to distinguish between combatants and noncombatants, and poisoning targets by radiation.

(Source: Robert Aldridge and Virginia Stark, “Nuclear War, Citizen Intervention, and the Necessity Defense,’ Santa Clara Law Review 26, no. 2 : 324—325.)

The Jarka trial served as the basis for the defense of subsequent actions and protests against the Reagan administration's escalating militarism, mindless military buildup, and meddling military interventions abroad.

In the years that followed the anti-nuclear activism, New Zealand banned nuclear warships from their ports, Australia banned the testing of MX missiles, India halted work on nuclear weapons, and called for nuclear disarmament, the Philippines voted for a no nuke constitution and closed down U.S. military bases harboring nuclear weapons. South Africa abandoned an infant nuclear weapons program. BushI was intimidated into unilaterally withdrawing short-range missiles from Western Europe.

Later there were the influential protests at the Nevada Test Site which fostered a Nevada-based, Semipalatinsk nuclear disarmament movement in the Soviet Union which led to the closure of the Soviet nuclear test sites.

In 1992 underground nuclear testing was halted for nine months, and stringent restrictions were enacted on further U.S. testing, and test ban negotiations and an end to U.S. testing by late 1996 were initiated.

The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) was achieved, despite resistance from Democrats including candidate Clinton during his presidential campaign. In spite of the resistance, anti-nuclear Congressmen and women organized a test ban and the Clinton administration extended the U.S. nuclear testing moratorium, encouraging a worldwide treaty. In September 1996, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty was signed by several nuclear and non-nuclear countries.

That was then . . .

Now, we have been made to endure the mindless idiocy of BushII. For the first time since the U.S. banned the production of nuclear weapons in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; signed by the U.S. and Russia in 1968, entered into force in 1970; and since the moratorium on nuclear testing, which has been in place since 1992, the nuclear arms race has been restarted by the Bush administration, aided in part by an underground Pentagon campaign.

Gen. Lee Butler, of the Strategic Air Command, along with former Air Force Secretary Thomas Reed, and Col. Michael Wheeler, made a report in 1991 which recommended the targeting of our nuclear weaponry at "every reasonable adversary around the globe." The report warned of nuclear weapons states which are likely to emerge." They were aided in their pursuit by, John Deutch, President Clinton's choice for Defense Secretary; Fred Iklé, former Deputy Defense Secretary, associated with Jonathan Pollard; future CIA Director R. James Woolsey; and Condoleezza Rice, who was on the National Security Council Staff, 1989-1991.

The new nuke report recommended that U.S. nuclear weapons be re-targeted, where U.S. forces faced conventional "impending annihilation ... at remote places around the globe," according to William M. Arkin and Robert S. Norris, in their criticism of the report in the April 1992 issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists ("Tiny Nukes").

At the same time, two Los Alamos (Lockheed) nuclear weapons scientists, Thomas Dowler and Joseph Howard, published an article in 1991 in the Strategic Review, titled "Countering the Threat of the Well-Armed Tyrant: A Modest Proposal for Smaller Nuclear Weapons." They argued that, "The existing U.S. nuclear arsenal had no deterrent effect on Saddam and is unlikely to deter a future tyrant."

They advocated for "the development of new nuclear weapons of very low yields, with destructive power proportional to the risks we will face in the new world environment," and they specifically called for the development and deployment of "micro-nukes" (with explosive yield of 10 tons), "mini-nukes" (100 tons), and "tiny-nukes" (1 kiloton).

Their justification for the smaller nuclear weapons was their contention that no President would authorize the use of the nuclear weapons in our present arsenal against Third World nations. "It is precisely this doubt that leads us to argue for the development of sub-kiloton weapons," they wrote.

In a White House document created in April 2000, "The United States of America Meeting its Commitment to Article VI of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons," the administration stated that, "as the United States reduces the numbers of its nuclear weapons, it is also transforming the means to build them."

Over the past decade, the United States has dramatically changed the role and mission of its nuclear-weapon complex from weapon research, development, testing, and production to weapon dismantlement, conversion for commercial use, and stockpile stewardship.

That was his father's nuclear program. George II wants bombs.

"The Bush administration has directed the military to prepare contingency plans to use nuclear weapons against at least seven countries, and to build new, smaller nuclear weapons for use in certain battlefield situations," according to a Pentagon report uncovered by the Los Angeles Times.

The report, which was provided to Congress on Jan. 8, 2003 says the Pentagon needs to be prepared to use nuclear weapons against China, Russia, Iraq, North Korea, Syria, Iran and Libya.

It says the weapons could be used in three types of situations: against targets able to withstand non-nuclear attack, in retaliation for attack with nuclear biological or chemical weapons, or in the event of ‘surprising military developments.' The new report, signed by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, is being used by the U.S. Strategic Command in the preparation of a nuclear war plan.

As reported by the World Policy Institute, the National Institute for Public Policy's, January 2001 report on the "rationale and requirements" for U.S. nuclear forces, was used as the model for the Bush administration's Nuclear Posture Review, which advocated an expansion of the U.S. nuclear "hit list" and the development of a new generation of "usable," lower-yield nuclear weapons.

Three members of the study group that produced the NIPP report - National Security Council members Stephen Hadley, Robert Joseph (undersecretary of Defense), and Stephen Cambone (Pentagon Intelligence director) - are now directly involved in implementing the Bush nuclear policy. Stephen Hadley, who replaced Rice as National Security Advisor, co-wrote a National institute for Public Policy paper portraying a nuclear bunker-buster bomb as an ideal weapon against the nuclear, chemical or biological weapons stockpiles of rouge nations such as Iraq. "Under certain circumstances," the report said, "very severe nuclear threats may be needed to deter any of these potential adversaries."

Reuters reported on the Bush administration plans to promote and push for the expansion of the nation's nuclear arsenal with the unveiling of an initiative produced by the ‘Defense Science Board'. The supporting document, named the “Future Strategic Strike Force’, outlines a reconfigured nuclear arsenal made up of smaller-scale missiles which could be targeted at smaller countries and other lower-scale targets. The report is a retreat from decades of understanding that these destructive weapons were to be used as a deterrent only; as a last resort.

In September 2004 the Senate went along with a White House push to reduce the preparation time required for nuclear testing in Nevada; clearing the way for a resumption of nuclear test explosions which have been banned since 1992. It seeks to cut the time it would take to restart testing nuclear weapons in the Nevada desert from three years to two years. The Bush administration wants the period cut to 18 months.

Congress plans to build the first permanent U.S. nuclear waste repository in the desert northwest of Las Vegas, scheduled to open in 2010 and would hold up to 77,000 tons of radioactive waste.

The Energy bill that has emerged from the recent Congress would provide $580 million for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste disposal project in 2004 — around $11 million less than Bush had requested but far above a $425 million limit earlier endorsed by the Senate.

The bill would also provide $11 million for a new factory to make plutonium "pits" for the next generation of nuclear weapons. The last U.S. facility for manufacturing nuclear triggers closed in 1989.

Citing "classified analyses" the DOE claims it needs to have a new pit facility capable of producing 125-500 pits per year. The DOE's Notice of Intent for the MPF also states that one of the functions for the facility will be to have the ability to produce new design pits for new types of nuclear weapons.

Most modern nuclear weapons depend on a plutonium pit as the "primary" that begins the chain reaction resulting in a thermonuclear explosion. A pit is a critical component of a nuclear weapon and functions as a trigger to allow a modern nuclear weapon to operate properly.

The Department of Energy announced on September 23, 2002, its intent to begin an examination of several possible sites for a Modern Pit Facility to produce plutonium pits for new and refurbished nuclear weapons.

The United States is the only nuclear power without the capability to manufacture a plutonium pit. About three-fourths of the U.S. surplus plutonium is relatively pure in the form of so-called pits, which have been removed (and deactivated) from existing warheads.

The remaining fourth of the surplus was in the process pipeline, mostly as plutonium residues, when processing was suddenly discontinued. The Soviet government processed all of its material to completion, so now all of the Russian surplus is in the form of pits or its weapon-form equivalent.

The Foster Panel Report, also known as the FY2000 Report to Congress of the Panel to Assess the Reliability, Safety, and Security of the United States Nuclear Stockpile, found that it could take 15 years from the point of developing a conceptual design for a pit facility until the final construction of the facility is completed.

The report stated that, "If it is determined through the science-based Stockpile Stewardship Program that one or more of our existing pit designs is no longer reliable, and therefore is not certifiable, our nuclear stockpile would, in effect, be unilaterally downsized below a level which could maintain a strong nuclear deterrence."

That is the hook which supporters of an expanded nuclear program will use to justify an abrogation of the treaty ban, and begin their new-generation arms race. If they don't get their way - to fiddle with and refurbish the existing nukes - they will argue that deterrence is at risk; a preposterous notion, as our existing arsenal is more than enough to blow us all to Pluto.

If new money is released, the nuclear weapons laboratories are expected to refurbish the casings on the existing nuclear B-61 and B-83 warheads, according to Energy Department nuclear czar and former UK Lockheed executive, Everett Beckner, in testimony before a Senate committee. Beckner claimed that both weapons have yields "substantially higher than five kilotons," so he has determined that the study will not violate a 1994 U.S. law prohibiting research on "low-yield" nuclear weapons.

A version of the B-61, modified to strike hardened and deeply buried targets, was added to the U.S. stockpile without nuclear testing in 1997. There is a serious question about the effectiveness of such a weapon on underground bunkers, and there is a concern that the neighboring effect of the radiation cloud would be devastating.

A nuclear strike on North Korea, for example, could generate deadly radioactive fallout, poisoning nearby countries such as Japan or Australia. Most observers do not believe that the new weapons can be developed without abandoning the non-proliferation treaty and sparking a new and frightening worldwide nuclear arms race.

The nuclear hawks are stepping out from behind their Trojan Horses of nuclear space travel and ‘safe', new nuclear fuels and are revealing a frightening ambition to yoke the nation to a new legacy of imperialism. President Bush has decided that America's image around the globe is to be one of an oppressive nuclear bully bent on world domination.

Mohamed El Baradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (the man at the UN charged with managing U.S. demands against Iran's uranium enrichment) said in 2003 that developing new nuclear weapons could hamper efforts to reach agreement with other countries who might want to expand their nuclear programs; like Iran and Pakistan, for example.

Congress plans to build the first permanent U.S. nuclear waste repository in the desert northwest of Las Vegas, scheduled to open in 2010 and would hold up to 77,000 tons of radioactive waste.

The Energy bill that has emerged from Congress would provide $580 million for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste disposal project in 2004 — around $11 million less than Bush had requested but far above a $425 million limit earlier endorsed by the Senate.

President Bush recently signed into law a Defense bill for 2004 which includes $9 billion in funding for research on the next generation of nuclear weaponry.

"It's an important signal we're sending," President Bush remarked at the signing of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004, "because, you see, the war on terror is different than any war America has ever fought."

"Our enemies seek to inflict mass casualties, without fielding mass armies," he cautioned. "They hide in the shadows, and they're often hard to strike. The terrorists are cunning and ruthless and dangerous, as the world saw on September the 11th, 2001. Yet these killers are now facing the United States of America, and a great coalition of responsible nations, and this threat to civilization will be defeated."

This is a posture usually reserved for nation-states who initiate or sponsor terrorists. The devastating neighboring effect of a potential nuclear engagement would contaminate innocent millions with the resulting radioactive fallout, and would not deter individuals with no known base of operations.

Yet, this administration, for the first time in our nation´s history, contemplates using nuclear weapons on countries which themselves have no nuclear capability, or pose no nuclear threat.

In September 2000, the PNAC drafted a report entitled "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century."

The conservative foundation- funded report was authored by Bill Kristol, Bruce Jackson, Gary Schmitt, John Bolton and others. Bolton, now Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security, was Senior Vice President of the conservative American Enterprise Institute. The report called for: ". . . significant, separate allocation of forces and budgetary resources over the next two decades for missile defense," and claimed that despite the "residue of investments first made in the mid- and late 1980s, over the past decade, the pace of innovation within the Pentagon had slowed measurably." Also that, "without the driving challenge of the Soviet military threat, efforts at innovation had lacked urgency."

The PNAC report asserted that "while long-range precision strikes will certainly play an increasingly large role in U.S. military operations, American forces must remain deployed abroad, in large numbers for decades and that U.S. forces will continue to operate many, if not most, of today's weapons systems for a decade or more." The PNAC document encouraged the military to "develop and deploy global missile defenses to defend the American homeland and American allies, and to provide a secure basis for U.S. power projection around the world."

The paper claimed that, "Potential rivals such as China were anxious to exploit these technologies broadly, while adversaries like Iran, Iraq and North Korea were rushing to develop ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons as a deterrent to American intervention in regions they sought to dominate. Also that, information and other new technologies – as well as widespread technological and weapons proliferation – were creating a ‘dynamic' that might threaten America's ability to exercise its ‘dominant' military power."

In reference to the nation's nuclear forces, the PNAC document asserted that, " reconfiguring its nuclear force, the United States also must counteract the effects of the proliferation of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction that may soon allow lesser states to deter U.S. military action by threatening U.S. allies and the American homeland itself."

"The (Clinton) administration's stewardship of the nation's deterrent capability has been described by Congress as "erosion by design," the group chided.

The authors further warned that, "U.S. nuclear force planning and related arms control policies must take account of a larger set of variables than in the past, including the growing number of small nuclear arsenals –from North Korea to Pakistan to, perhaps soon, Iran and Iraq – and a modernized and expanded Chinese nuclear force." In addition, they counseled, "there may be a need to develop a new family of nuclear weapons designed to address new sets of military requirements, such as would be required in targeting the very deep underground, hardened bunkers that are being built by many of our potential adversaries."

The PNAC ‘Rebuilding America' report was used after the Sept. 11th terrorist attacks to draft the 2002 document entitled "The National Security Strategy of the United States," which for the first time in the nation's history advocated "preemptive" attacks to prevent the emergence of opponents the administration considered a threat to its political and economic interests.

It states that ". . . we will not hesitate to act alone, if necessary, to exercise our right of self-defense by acting preemptively against such terrorists, to prevent them from doing harm against our people and our country." And that, "To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively."

This military industry band of executives promoted the view, in and outside of the White House that, " must be prepared to stop rogue states and their terrorist clients before they are able to threaten or use weapons of mass destruction against the United States and our allies and friends. . . We must deter and defend against the threat before it is unleashed."

Their strategy asserts that "The United States has long maintained the option of preemptive actions to counter a sufficient threat to our national security. The greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction - and the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy's attack."

The 2002 PNAC document is a mirrored synopsis of the Bush administration's foreign policy today. President Bush is projecting a domineering image of the United States around the world which has provoked lesser equipped countries to desperate, unconventional defenses; or resigned them to a humiliating surrender to our rape of their lands, their resources and their communities.

President Bush intends for there to be more conquest - like in Iraq - as the United States exercises its military force around the world; our mandate, our justification, presumably inherent in the mere possession of our instruments of destruction.

We are unleashing a new, unnecessary fear between the nations of the world as we dissolve decades of firm understandings about an America power which was to be guileless in its unassailable defenses. The falseness of our diplomacy is revealed in our scramble for ‘useable', tactical nuclear missiles, new weapons systems, and our new justifications for their use.

Our folly is evident in the rejection of our ambitions by even the closest of our allies, as we reject all entreaties to moderate our manufactured mandate to conquer. Isolation is enveloping our nation like the warming of the atmosphere and the creeping melt of our planet's ancient glaciers.

Who will stand up against this new generation of nuclear madness? If we stand firm there is no limit to what we can achieve. If we refuse to stand up against this administration's push for new nukes, if we are indifferent, if we shrink away and accept their weak excuses and justifications we will undo a generation of resistance and activism.

This is our chance to make a difference. This is our moment to rise up against another mindless escalation into a new nuclear arms race. Are we ready?

Ron Fullwood, is an activist from Columbia, Md. and the author of the book 'Power of Mischief' : Military Industry Executives are Making Bush Policy and the Country is Paying the Price

---------------------------

Deseret News
April 06, 2006

Trio's letter slams PFS N-proposal

By Suzanne Struglinski
Deseret Morning News

WASHINGTON — Just in case anyone on Capitol Hill forgot, Utah's House members sent out a reminder that it strongly opposes Private Fuel Storage's idea to store nuclear waste in Utah.

Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, hand-delivered a letter to Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, on Tuesday stating that while the country needs to do something about nuclear waste, PFS's project is not the answer. Bishop, Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, and Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, all signed the letter.

Hobson is head of the House Appropriations Energy and Water Development Subcommittee, which writes the House's version of the energy spending bill each year. Copies also went to the subcommittee's top Democrat Pete Visclosky of Indiana and the House Energy and Commerce Committee leadership.

Hobson is a strong supporter of the government's plan to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, but also wants waste to move off commercial sites as soon as possible, possibly to an interim storage site on federal property.

In the letter, Bishop, Matheson and Cannon reminded Hobson that on May 24, 2005, he said on the House floor: "I do not see any reason for the secretary to consider making a private site or a site on tribal land, into a DOE site for interim storage. My intent is for the secretary to evaluate storage options at existing DOE sites."

Bishop said the letter was to reinforce that statement "in case anyone wants to change it around this year." A similar statement was made on the floor in the Senate at the time, he said.

Bishop said that Hobson said no state would be forced to take government-owned waste to a private site against its will. He said this still allows PFS to "head hunt" for other companies that would want to move waste, but Hobson said government-owned waste would not be involved.

Private Fuel Storage Chairman John Parkyn sent a letter to Congress asking to allow the Energy Department to become a client for its planned nuclear waste storage facility in Tooele County. The department could take title to the waste and move it to Utah until Yucca would be finished or at least reimburse companies that want to move their waste to PFS.

"PFS is not a company with discernible assets other than a regulated license," the Utah House members wrote. "Mr. Parkyn, having lost over half of his original investors, seems anxious and desperate to find new victims for his venture in Utah."

They also pointed to the new wilderness area approved by Congress last year to protect the Utah Test and Training Range, which also blocks the area where PFS wanted to build a rail line.

"PFS could not have chosen a worse location, as it is directly underneath the well-established flight-path for all types of military aircraft utilizing the range, including F-16s and F-22s." they wrote. "One would have to be incredibly stupid to knowingly build an above-ground, high-level nuclear waste storage facility underneath the airspace corridor of a heavily used military training range which supports 2,000 sorties per year involving live munitions."

PFS spokeswoman Sue Martin said she was not aware of any replies from the Energy Department or members of Congress on Parkyn's proposal. She said they continue to work on marketing and meeting with people in the industry to move the project ahead.

Meanwhile, the Energy Department sent a major Yucca Mountain bill to Congress Wednesday after months of cautious speculation and rumor on what would actually be in the bill from those that follow the issue.

The bill, which still needs to be introduced officially by a member of Congress, would withdraw permanently from public use the land at and surrounding the Yucca Mountain repository site in Nevada, and would change how Congress allocates money to the project.

The proposed bill would also eliminate the current 70,000 metric ton limit on Yucca, which was only a legal limit, because the site can technically hold more.

The summary from the Energy Department does not include any specific language on federal interim storage, but Bob Loux, Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency director, the state's top Yucca critic, said as he reads certain parts of it, if the bill is approved, waste could begin moving the next day.

While no rail line currently exists to the Yucca project, proposed rail routes to get nuclear waste from across the country to Nevada could go through Salt Lake City, according to a 2002 analysis by the Energy Department.

E-mail: suzanne@desnews.com

---------------------------

Salt Lake Tribune
April 06, 2006

Utah trio asks House boss to scrap PFS offer

The Salt Lake Tribune

WASHINGTON - Utah's House members are urging a key budget leader to reject an offer from Private Fuel Storage to store most of the nation's nuclear waste on a Utah Indian reservation. The letter to House Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman David Hobson lays out the familiar list of reasons they oppose the PFS site: Its proximity to the Air Force training range, a lack of financial assurances, questions about governance of the Skull Valley Goshute tribe. It was signed by Reps. Rob Bishop, Jim Matheson and Chris Cannon and hand-delivered by Bishop on Tuesday. In an earlier letter to Hobson and others, PFS

Chairman John Parkyn offered to contract with the Energy Department to store 44,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel on the site at a cost of about $60 million annually until a permanent waste repository can be built at Yucca Mountain, Nev. Hobson asked the Energy Department to look at the proposal, but he did not endorse it. - Robert Gehrke

---------------------------

Inside Bay Area
April 06, 2006

Expert says carbon cap could revive nuke power

Investors and environmental groups meet in Oakland, look at future of electric utilities

By Ian Hoffman
Staff Writer

As electric utilities look at new power plants for the next 30 years, overwhelmingly they are plowing money into burning pulverized coal — cheap, abundant domestically and full of carbon dioxide.

Some of the 132 new coal-fired plants proposed for the United States will not be built, but federal energy analysts are predicting the new plants will boost greenhouse-gas emissions for the electric industry 43 percent by 2030.

Ceres, a coalition of environmentally minded investors and environmental groups, reported Wednesday at its meeting in Oakland that those releases account for nearly all growth in U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions for the next quarter-century.

"Voluntary approaches for curbing greenhouse gas emissions are not working," Ceres President Mindy Lubber said.

If Congress were to cap those emissions and create a market for trading in permits to release carbon as four Senate bills now propose, electric utilities and their customers would pay a premium for coal-fired power or turn elsewhere for carbon-free energy.

The least-expensive alternative, according to utility analyst Swami Venkataraman of the bond-rating firm Standard and Poor's, is to go nuclear.

No electric-power company has ordered a nuclear power plant since 1978, but the nuclear industry could be poised for a comeback, fueled by concern about global warming and more than $8 billion in tax credits from Congress.

The electricity industry has other options. Firms can burn pulverized coal and capture the carbon dioxide to be piped miles underground in places unriven by cracks and faults. But locking up the carbon costs energy and money, boosting the price of electricity.

Power companies also can try a new technology called Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle, or IGCC, which can turn coal or liquid fuels into both electricity and hydrogen while producing less carbon dioxide to be injected underground. So far, that is the least-expensive way of burning abundant U.S. coal, Venkataraman said.

"Today if I'm a utility executive faced with a carbon-constrained world, I will build an IGCC," he told Ceres members and utility officials Wednesday. "I will not build a pulverized-coal plant. But that's what many are building today."

Still, the cheapest choice of all, he said, is building a nuclear power plant.

---------------------------

Cattle Network
April 06, 2006

US Energy Secretary: Oil Prices Eventually Will Impact Economy

DETROIT (Dow Jones)--U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said Thursday that he's "surprised" that oil price increases over the last year haven't had a greater impact on the U.S. economy but said, eventually, sustained high prices will have an economic effect.

Speaking during a question-and-answer session during his speech at the Society of Automotive Engineers World Congress, Bodman said he's "worried" that the economy will suffer if oil prices stay above current levels.

"At some point in time we're going to reach a limit and we will see a real impact of increased oil prices on our economic activity," Bodman said. "Whether its $95 or something north of that I don't know. I can tell you I'm worried about anything above the current levels."

Oil prices have surged over the past four years, touching $70 a barrel last summer in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The May contract is trading between $67-$68 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Bodman said the administration's Advanced Energy Initiative, which calls for increases in research dollars for bio-fuels, hybrid battery technology and hydrogen fuel, has the country "on the right track" in terms of mitigating the impact of oil prices.

But he warned there are no quick fixes.

"We think we're on the right track," he said. "But this country has been decades in getting itself into the fix we're in now. And it'll be a significant number of years working our way out of it."

Bodman also called for the approval of the Yucca Mountain project, which is to be built for the disposal of nuclear waste. He said current initiatives to help along construction of nuclear power plants will lead to a "single digit" number of new plants on line by 2015. That's because the issue of what to do with nuclear waste, such as spent fuel rods, has yet to be addressed.

"This country doesn't need four (nuclear power) plants," he said during a press conference after his speech. "We need 14 or we need 24. To get a general rebirth, if you will, of the nuclear industry in this country will require Yucca Mountain be built."

Bodman said demand for electricity in the U.S. will increase 50% over the next 20-25 years and "the only thing I see meeting that is nuclear power."

-By Terry Kosdrosky, Dow Jones Newswires; 313-226-1251;
terry.kosdrosky@dowjones.com

---------------------------
State of Nevada
Agency for Nuclear Projects
www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/
nwpo@nuc.state.nv.us
775-687-3744
---------------------------