Yucca Mountain News Clips
Tuesday, August 1, 2006
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
August 01, 2006
Reid notes connection between Yucca, 'Big Dig'
Bechtel Corp. involved in both projects, senator points out
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., opened a new line of criticism against the Yucca Mountain program on Monday, noting the nuclear waste project has been managed by the same company with a role in the disastrous "Big Dig" tunnels in Boston.
Bechtel Corp., the largest engineering company in the United States, is a partner with Science Applications International Corp., in operating the Yucca program for the Department of Energy in Nevada.
Along with partner Parsons Brinckerhoff, Bechtel also has served as private sector manager on the $14.6 billion Boston highway project, which has suffered big cost overruns as well as leaks in tunnels below Boston Harbor.
On July 10, a three-ton concrete panel crashed from a tunnel ceiling and killed a 39-year old motorist.
Reid, a longtime critic of the Yucca project, said Bechtel's involvement in Massachusetts gave him further pause about the Nevada site, where the firm is designing tunnels for the underground storage of radioactive spent nuclear fuel, as well as aboveground waste- handling plants.
"I personally feel some reservations about their performance based on what we have learned about the Big Dig," Reid said of Bechtel. "It's the same kind of thing, a big hole, the same kind of deal."
"We are going to push back on this," Reid said. He did not say what further action he might pursue. Aides said it was unlikely he would call for Bechtel SAIC to be removed from the Yucca project.
Within Bechtel, the Nevada and Massachusetts projects -- along with hundreds of others that the firm manages -- share certain corporate resources, including access to engineering and construction experts and human resources personnel, company spokesman Jason Bohne said.
Bohne, who is based in Las Vegas, said he was not aware of any managers or key personnel who have worked on both Yucca Mountain and the Big Dig projects.
"Each project is very unique," Bohne said. "There is not another Big Dig out there. There is not another Yucca Mountain out there."
Bohne said Bechtel is supporting investigations into the Boston death.
Energy Department spokesman Allen Benson said the Yucca repository is being designed to "the most stringent of quality assurance standards as approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission."
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Reno Gazette-Journal
August 01, 2006
Minden retiree sees his opportunity to run
Anjeanette Damon
Glenn Thomas, a California retiree who moved to Minden two years ago, has long considered running for office.
And when U.S. Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Reno, decided to vacate his seat in the 2nd Congressional District to run for governor, Thomas saw the perfect opportunity.
"Normally the incumbent is pretty hard to beat," Thomas, 56, said. "But suddenly, there's no incumbent. There's something to be said for that."
Thomas spent a career as a systems engineer in the aerospace industry, studying "how systems work, how they go wrong, how they can be subverted." He thinks the skill could be useful in politics.
"For years, I've been looking at the political establishment and folks in it seem more interested in promoting and enriching themselves than in dealing with the nation's problems and its future," Thomas said. "Based on that, I can certainly do no worse."
Thomas is one of five Republicans in the Aug. 15 primary for the party's nomination. His opponents are Assemblywoman Sharron Angle, R-Reno; former Assemblywoman Dawn Gibbons, Jim Gibbons' wife; Secretary of State Dean Heller and Las Vegan Richard Gilster.
Thomas' main issue is campaign finance reform. He's sickened by the amount of money contributors pour into campaigns and believes politicians have no other choice than to be beholden to them.
To fix it, he said he would work on creating a blind system, where candidates wouldn't know who was giving the money.
"If the candidates don't know where the money came from, then the money does not buy influence," he said.
Thomas considers himself a centrist. He's a registered Republican because he said he would rather government help "people actually producing something."
Although he's only lived in Nevada a short time he said he knows federal issues well enough to be an effective representative for the state.
"The national issues I'm well acquainted with just by being a citizen of the United States who at least tries to pay attention," he said. "I'm as qualified as anyone else in any other state to work for the good of Nevada. Of course, I live here, so I'm motivated."
Thomas said it's time for a more pragmatic view of the nation's effort to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain.
"There's only a few places in the United States that it could be stored," he said. "The federal government owns a lot of land in Nevada. And Nevada has endured more nuclear detonations (at the nuclear test site) than any other place in the world. It kind of makes sense to put the nuclear waste there."
Thomas and his wife, Judy, have been married 10 years.
In his spare time, Thomas is a ham radio operator, volunteering his services for wildfires and other emergencies.
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Reno Gazette-Journal
August 01, 2006
Angle says record proves she is most conservative
Anjeanette Damon
Assemblywoman Sharron Angle's claim to fame in the Nevada Legislature is that more than any other lawmaker, she is the only 'no' vote on scores of bills that pass out of the Assembly.
Her critics contend her voting record reflects her inability to garner support for her agenda among her colleagues.
But Angle, 57, says it is because she is a lone voice of reason in a Democrat-controlled Assembly, standing against further government regulation and taxes.
That would change, she argues, if she is elected to replace U.S. Rep. Jim Gibbons as representative from Nevada's 2nd Congressional District.
"I've been in the minority," she said. "It is not usually a position that you can make real changes from because you need that majority. That is truly why we shouldn't be sending any liberal Republicans to Congress."
Angle is one of five Republicans in the GOP primary Aug. 15. Her opponents are former Assemblywoman Dawn Gibbons, Jim Gibbons' wife; Secretary of State Dean Heller, Minden retiree Glenn Thomas and Las Vegan Richard Gilster.
In the latest polls, Gibbons and Heller are in a close race with Angle not far behind. Each is trying to become the race's most conservative candidate.
Angle said she's got the record and the experience to support her claim.
She also has the endorsement of the Republican Study Committee, a cadre of 110 conservative House Republicans, and the Club for Growth, a conservative political nonprofit organization called a 527.
The Club for Growth is responsible for the vast majority of her campaign contributions, which have come from across the country.
Heller and Gibbons argue that reflects a lack of support from Nevadans. But Angle said she is proud of the out-of-state money.
"My checks come from individuals all over the United States and the average donation is $143," she said. "These are not political insiders. These are people who think the same way I do.
"If you take money from people who think the same way you do, when you get in those tough situations, you know they aren't going to ask you to do something you wouldn't have done already."
The Club for Growth, under investigation for federal campaign finance law violations, also is paying for television advertisements attacking Angle's opponents.
Angle has been a Nevadan since she was a young child. Her parents owned a motel on South Virginia Street in Reno and she grew up helping her parents run it.
She's lived throughout Nevada, including in Winnemucca, Ely and Tonopah.
Angle's political career began in 1992 with a successful run for the Nye County School Board. In 1996 she moved to Reno and won her first race for Assembly in 1998.
In her four terms at the Legislature, Angle earned a reputation as a strict conservative who voted according to her ideology.
In 2003, she was one of 15 Assembly Republicans who temporarily blocked a record tax increase.
When a Nevada Supreme Court ruling appeared to undermine the state's constitutional requirement for a two-thirds vote of the Legislature to raise taxes during that fight, Angle helped lead an unsuccessful appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.
While Angle has been a staunch anti-taxer in the Legislature, she has voted in favor of record spending increases -- something her opponents continually point out.
In 2005, she voted in support of $1.9 billion in new spending.
Angle said it is natural for the state budget to grow quickly since Nevada was "the fastest growing state in the nation."
She also noted that the budget increase she voted for in 2005 ended up not exceeding the rate of population growth plus inflation that year.
In Congress, Angle said she would work to eliminate the Estate Tax, repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax and repeal or permanently cap the capital gains tax.
She wants to help rewrite the income tax code so it is "flatter and fairer," saying she's open to exploring a flat tax or a consumption-based tax.
Angle also said she doesn't support spending more state money to fight the federal government's effort to build a permanent nuclear waste storage facility at Yucca Mountain.
"I think we're all fairly realistic in knowing that when the federal government sets its mind to something, it is pretty hard to change it," she said. "Realistically, we need to start looking at, if it comes, what are our options here. It doesn't look like anyone but us is saying no."
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Reno Gazette-Journal
August 01, 2006
Gibbons defends her '03 vote on taxes
Anjeanette Damon
In a Republican congressional primary quickly becoming a contest to prove who is the most conservative, former Assemblywoman Dawn Gibbons has a glaring obstacle to overcome -- her vote in support of the state's largest tax increase in 2003.
Gibbons is one of five Republicans running in the Aug. 15 primary to replace her husband, U.S. Rep. Jim Gibbons, who has been the incumbent in the mostly GOP district for nearly a decade.
It is her first campaign since voting 'yes' in the Nevada Assembly on $836 million in new and increased taxes.
But while her opponents will spend thousands reminding voters of the tax increase, Gibbons doesn't think voters will hold it against her.
"I did the right thing because I stood with parents, teachers, our students and school administrators," Gibbons said. "In the end you've got to do the right thing and I did the right thing. I'm not going to apologize for that."
Gibbons called the 2003 tax fight -- which resulted in a Supreme Court battle, two special sessions and nearly delayed school openings across the state -- a disgrace.
She said she offered ways to cut the budget earlier in the session, but when it came time for a vote to fund the budget already passed by the Legislature, she didn't have a choice but to support the taxes.
She also touted the fact she co-authored the Gibbons Tax Restraint initiative created by her husband and passed by voters in 1996. That initiative amended the constitution to require a two-thirds vote of the Legislature to increase taxes in Nevada.
Her opponents are Assemblywoman Sharron Angle, R-Reno; Secretary of State Dean Heller, Minden retiree Glenn Thomas and Las Vegan Richard Gilster.
Gibbons said her goal is to put to use her experience as a small business owner -- she used to run two wedding chapels in Reno -- by working to reduce regulations that strangle productivity.
Employers must be able to easily verify their employees' citizenship and Social Security number, she said. And health care providers need more streamlined reporting requirements.
"I was at the doctor's office the other day and there were 12 people behind the counter and not one of them could probably give me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation," Gibbons said. "They were all just shuffling paperwork."
She's also concerned about the accessibility of health insurance, saying it is more and more difficult for small businesses to afford to offer it as a benefit.
She envisions one day when the country requires every individual carry health insurance just as drivers are required to carry motor vehicle insurance.
"Everybody has to have insurance for their vehicles," she said. "We didn't get there overnight. At some point we may have to look at it, because if we did it nationwide, we could get (health insurance) down cheaper so people could afford it. The marketplace would demand it."
And she thinks fighting the nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain is the biggest issue facing the state on the federal level now.
Gibbons hasn't always been a Republican. She grew up in Georgia in a community full of Democrats.
"When I was in Georgia, I didn't know a Republican," she said. "I came here, I was a Democrat and when I met my husband he was going to the Republican Party. That's when I changed. The first thing he asked me was: 'I don't know why you'd be a Democrat because you're a business person.'"
But it upsets her to be called a liberal.
In an interview on the same day the Club for Growth, which is backing Angle, put up attack ads on television labeling her a tax-and-spend liberal, Gibbons became emotional when asked if it was true.
"No," she said, tearing up. "I'm more conservative than most people. I can stretch a dollar until George Washington jumped off and hollered. I've worked all my life. Money doesn't come easy to me."
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Reno Gazette-Journal
August 01, 2006
Heller touts work as secretary of state
Anjeanette Damon
Dean Heller, a lifelong fixture in Carson City, is betting his track record as secretary of state will propel him to Washington, D.C., in November.
"Frankly, I think I get elected to Congress if the public feels I did a good job as secretary of state," he said. "I believe I did an exceptional job as secretary of state."
Heller, 46, is one of five Republicans competing in the Aug. 15 primary to replace U.S. Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Reno, who is running for governor. His opponents are former Assemblywoman Dawn Gibbons, the incumbent's wife; Assemblywoman Sharron Angle, R-Reno; Minden retiree Glenn Thomas and Las Vegan Richard Gilster.
Gilster couldn't be reached by the Reno Gazette-Journal.
Heller said his office has become a national model for implementing new federal voting regulations that were born of the 2000 election. Nevada was the only state in 2004 to have a paper trail on its new electronic voting machines and election officials from across the nation came to watch how it worked.
But Heller missed a federal deadline to implement a federally-required statewide voter registration database earlier this year. His critics accused him of botching the $4.6 million contract with a company to design the system. The company has had similar problems in other states across the nation.
Heller said he averted problems by having a backup plan for a different system, which kept the state from losing federal funds due to the delay. The state still is awaiting confirmation from the Department of Justice that the new system is federally compliant.
"I am someone who plans well ahead and if the first plan doesn't work, we better have a back up," he said.
Heller has worked with mixed success to pass legislation giving the public more access to government records and reforming the state's campaign finance laws to make politicians' fundraising activities more transparent.
He prides himself on keeping the door to his office on the first floor of the Capitol open. The only time the door has been closed in Heller's eight years in office was for a few weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
His efforts to convince the Nevada Legislature to enact same-day voter registration to drive up voter turnout have failed.
The three frontrunners in the GOP primary each are trying to position themselves as the most conservative candidate in a district where Republicans outnumber Democrats by nearly 50,000 voters.
His campaign ads attack Gibbons as a "taxer" and Angle as a "spender." Heller said he would rein in both if elected.
Heller said it would be "very, very difficult for me to support a budget that included pork spending, that isn't balanced and that increases the debt."
When pressed, however, he refused to pledge not to vote in favor of a budget that wasn't balanced.
"I'm not going to make a broad statement that tells me when I get to Washington I can't govern," he said. "I will vote for a balanced budget amendment. I will vote for a line-item veto. And I will vote to abolish pork spending."
Eliminating earmarks, which lawmakers use to slip funding for pet projects into unrelated legislation, would help correct the imbalance that costs Nevada taxpayers more money than the state receives back from the federal government, Heller said.
For each dollar spent on federal taxes in Nevada, the state receives back 72 cents.
He would continue funding the fight against the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain.
Heller said the most important issue facing Nevada is how to manage the water resources. But he said the decisions should be made at the local level and that the federal government should stay out of it.
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Amarillo Globe-News
August 01, 2006
Changing attitudes make nuclear attractive
By Kevin Welch
kevin.welch@amarillo.com
Why nuclear power? And why now?
The short answer: Someone is going to have to supply the growing national need for electricity, a need that is expected to balloon 45 percent in the next quarter century.
"Electricity demand grows by 75 percent from 2004 to 2030 in the commercial sector, by 47 percent in the residential sector and by 24 percent in the industrial sector," according to the Energy Information Administration.
While growth will occur across the country, the southeast is where the demand should be greatest.
Of the 12 publicly announced nuclear projects, all but one are in the Southeast. The South Texas Project was the lone Western project, said Ron Hagen, nuclear energy specialist at EIA, until Amarillo Power's made its plan public.
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says potential projects are seeking combined operating licenses for 25 reactors.
"That's an amazing number of reactors. They're pretty darn big things," Hagen said. "The smallest is probably 1,100 megawatts."
A plant that size would produce a little more electricity than Amarillo's Harrington Station produces, Xcel Energy spokesman Wes Reeves said.
Some 30 years after the last American reactor was ordered, the rebirth of nuclear power possibilities is on a lot of people's lips.
"Nuclear is being talked about like it hasn't been for a long time," said Ellen Vancko, director of communications and government affairs for North American Electric Reliability Council.
That applies to George Bush who prominently included the power source in his energy initiative that focuses on cutting reliance on foreign oil and natural gas and the greenhouse gases created by burning these increasingly pricey fuels.
Tighter restrictions on emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and mercury, on top of talk about limiting carbon dioxide emissions, one of the greenhouse gases, make nuclear reactors look good since, unlike coal and gas plants, they emit none of these, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute.
Bush's Energy Policy Act specifically includes a variety of measures meant to spur the construction of nuclear plants.
Among them are $3.1 billion in production tax credits for power from new nuclear plants, loan guarantees, financial protection from construction delays caused by government and $3 billion in nuclear power research and development on the federal level.
And the interest doesn't end at the border. There is planning or action on nuclear plants in Canada, Finland, France, Iran, Russia, South Africa, Japan, China, Pakistan, India, Argentina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, the Czech Republic and Turkey.
A lack of negative publicity also helps the case for nuclear power. Three-Mile Island and Chernobyl are gone from the headlines, and public perception is positive for the industry. A national survey showed 70 percent of respondents support the power source, according to information from the Nuclear Energy Institute.
However, some are firmly against building more nuclear reactors, even where they already exist such as NRG's South Texas Project plant.
"Thirty years ago, we were promised that nuclear energy would produce energy 'too cheap to meter,' but the costs are still mounting," said Tom "Smitty" Smith, director of Public Citizen's Texas office. "Nuclear plants are too costly to build, too risky to operate and the wastes are still too hot to handle."
Some say there is a waste storage plan but it is still not functioning.
"It depends on who you ask," Hagen said. "The idea of Yucca Mountain was approved three or four years ago, so allegedly the administration has a solution."
However, licensing for the Nevada storage site has not begun and there are questions about whether the proposed facility would hold the waste from the past and future.
In the meantime, there are options. Interim storage involves first cooling the fuel rods in liquid. After that, dry storage can be done at or near the plants.
"They claim it can be done for 100 years," Hagen said. "If you accept that, then at least you have way more time to look at storage."
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Detroit Free Press
August 01, 2006
A roundup of editorial opinion from Michigan newspapers
ASSOCIATED PRESS
A local landfill's contamination of nearby groundwater requires that innocent parties do penance for old environmental sins.
Such is often the case when Mother Earth has been disrespected. Stuck with cleaning up the mess at the Richfield Landfill is its current owner, Richfield Equities, which at least took control of the site with eyes wide open.
Among the fixes it has agreed to fund is a water line extension along East Mount Morris Road. It also will pay tap-in fees for any affected property owners who want to access it, build a clay barrier to stop seepage of hazardous liquids and alter the terrain so groundwater drains inward.
However, homeowners around the landfill are paying a bigger price. Not only are some avoiding water from a shallow aquifer, they fear eating anything grown on the contaminated land, and likely will be hindered in their ability to sell their investments. Even Holloway Reservoir, a recreational resource for the Genesee County parks, could be harmed as a result of the apparently inadequate practices of the former owners of the landfill, which was closed for 11 years before being reopened in 2002.
We trust the state Department of Environmental Quality, which has oversight responsibility, will ensure all necessary remedies are taken. It's on occasions such as these that we are grateful for the existence of such government bodies, which so often are maligned as hindrances to business growth.
While this might occur at times, any thought of rendering agencies like the DEQ impotent is an idea without a basis in history or common sense. If anything, examples like the Richfield Landfill suggest government might more often be criticized for its failures, rather than its excesses, as an environmental protector. -- THE FLINT JOURNAL, July 17.
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Nuclear power: Get on with it
Michigan needs a new electric power plant, but there has to be some energy coming out of Washington, too. Congress needs to break its political stalemate over disposal of nuclear waste to open the way for more power plant construction.
At the same time, federal lawmakers would be squaring themselves with utility companies and millions of ratepayers who, through their monthly electric bills, have been making mandatory deposits of $750 million a year into the federal Nuclear Waste Fund.
The payments, which amount to one-tenth of a cent per kilowatt hour, are supposed to go toward construction and operation of a waste dump. Instead, the fund -- now holding some $18 billion -- is mostly used to back up other federal programs.
The lack of a permanent dump for radioactive leftovers is the cork in the nuclear power bottle, and has been for over two decades. Without the storage site, the country has been left to pile up 50,000 tons of nuclear waste at some 130 temporary sites in 39 states.
Mostly, the sites are on the grounds of nuclear power plants, including three along West Michigan's Lake Michigan shore. The storage containers, made of concrete and steel, are safe, but the plant sites weren't designed as waste storage locations. Ratepayers shouldn't have to pay to stuff dollars into the Nuclear Waste Fund while waste piles up in the temporary bins.
The situation dates to 1982 when Congress ordered construction of a permanent burial place for nuclear wastes. In 1987, lawmakers decided that the site would be Nevada's desolate Yucca Mountain and stipulated that wastes should be going there by 1998.
But eight years beyond that date, not a pound of nuclear waste has entered Yucca Mountain. Nevada opposition in the Senate, supported by Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing, and lawsuits by anti-nuclear and environmental groups have stymied progress.
Now the Senate is moving to set up regional waste centers to last 25 years or until Yucca Mountain can be opened. The Senate Appropriations Committee has approved such a plan. The idea likely is a false hope, and an expensive one at that.
Further political blockades and drawn-out legal battles are inevitable. Congress instead should focus on legislation needed to push the Yucca Mountain project forward.
Michigan needs that movement. The state's existing power plants aren't generating enough electricity to meet peak requirements. Not for 17 years has a major power plant been built in the state. A state Public Service Commission report this year recommended that Michigan have at least one new electric power plant on line by 2011. The plant almost certainly will be coal-fired unless nuclear power can be freed up as an option.
That should happen. Nuclear power is a clean, safe and reliable energy source. It also would serve to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. Michigan's federal lawmakers should be pushing nuclear power. This time, Sen. Stabenow should be among them. -- THE GRAND RAPIDS PRESS, July 21.
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Las Vegas SUN
July 31, 2006
In light of Big Dig problems, Reid sounds alarm on Yucca
By Erica Werner
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - Sen. Harry Reid has a new argument against the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump: The contractor building the repository is the same one on Boston's troubled Big Dig highway project, where a falling concrete slab crushed a motorist to death earlier this month.
"If Bechtel can't do a better job on the Big Dig than what they've done, I don't see why they should be involved with Yucca Mountain," Reid, D-Nev., told Nevada reporters in his Senate office Monday.
Reid stopped short of calling for Bechtel to be removed from building the nation's nuclear waste dump 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. But the Senate minority leader said the company's involvement "should concern everyone." His aides distributed a handout highlighting similarities in Bechtel's roles on the Big Dig and Yucca Mountain.
An Energy Department spokesman disputed the comparison.
"I think what we're doing at Yucca Mountain is something completely different, but we're also fully engaged in quality assurance," spokesman Craig Stevens said. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman "has put in new leadership that will make sure that science drives the work at Yucca Mountain," Stevens said.
The dump is meant to hold at least 77,000 tons of highly radioactive waste but has been set back by political opposition and a series of controversies. The Energy Department earlier this month announced a new schedule to submit a license application for the dump in 2008 and open it in 2017.
Reid touched on a series of other issues in the wide-ranging half-hour interview, his first sit-down with Nevada reporters in Washington in some months.
-He said he wasn't worried about polls showing his approval ratings in his home state slipping. Reid, who won't face voters again until 2010, acknowledged he's lost support among Republicans since becoming minority leader after his re-election in 2004 but said his post has been good for the state.
"I, of course, have had to be somewhat direct about President Bush," Reid said.
"I'll continue to do what I think is right and not worry about the polls."
-Nearly a year after suffering a mini-stroke Reid said his health was good and there'd been no residual problems. "I'm probably a little more aware of my mortality," Reid said.
-Reid said he was confident Nevada could pull off the new role it's expected to get as a leadoff caucus state. He declined to say which of the prospective Democratic candidates would play best in the state.
-Reid predicted that if the midterm election were held today, Democrats would pick up five Senate seats - in Missouri, Pennsylvania, Montana, Ohio and Rhode Island - one short of the six needed to retake control of the Senate and make him majority leader. "We have to beat six incumbent Republican senators, and that's hard to do," Reid said.
-Reid accused Republicans of showing an "obsessive-compulsive desire to help the richest of the rich" in attaching an inheritance tax reduction to a bill raising the minimum wage. Reid also said the minimum wage proposal hurts workers in some states, including Nevada, who rely heavily on tips because the bill would set a federal rate for tip-earners that would pre-empt higher state rates.
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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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