Yucca Mountain News Clips - Monday, August 14, 2006

Yucca Mountain News Clips
Monday, August 14, 2006
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American Spectator
August 14, 2006

The Nation's Pulse

Public Works Blues

By Shawn Macomber

BOSTON -- In his 2000 guidebook Boston A to Z, Thomas O'Connor offered a dour assessment of the city's project to ease traffic by routing major thoroughfares underground and underwater commonly known as the Big Dig, writing, "old roadways are closed, new access roads are built, road signs are changed, drivers are confused, traffic jams are endemic, delays are routine -- but authorities assert that when the Big Dig is finally completed the results will make it all worthwhile."

Though the Big Dig officially wrapped up in 2003, the day when the "results" would all be "worthwhile" has seemed light years away since the evening of July 10 when the life of 38-year-old newlywed immigrant Milena Del Valle was snuffed out in front of her horrified husband as twelve tons of concrete crashed down on their Honda sedan from the ceiling of the I-90 Connector tunnel. In the past, notoriously jaded Bostonians tended to make bitter light of the failings of the Big Dig. The most shocking aspect of the reaction to the tragedy in Boston was the lack of shock. The general mood throughout the city since Del Valle's death, however, has more closely mirrored a 1985 song by British troubadour Morrissey, "that joke isn't funny anymore, it's too close to home and it's too near the bone."

As I have expounded upon elsewhere at length, in denying Gov. Mitt Romney's repeated attempts to gain some semblance of supervision over the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority (MTA), the independent agency running the Big Dig, Massachusetts Democrats -- with an 87 percent majority in the state legislature -- essentially knitted Romney a radiation suit for use during what populist-Left economist Max Sawicky deemed "Massachusetts Democrats' mini-Chernobyl." Having spent the last three years damning the fiscal and safety policies of Big Dig administrators, Romney now has Lexis-Nexis on his side. Unless the Governor drops the ball, those who have opposed his attempts at reform will reap the whirlwind.

Still, the Big Dig disaster is bound to have implications beyond the realm of 2008 politics, where pundits treat Del Valle's life as if its primary value was how it would strengthen or weaken Romney's bid for the presidency.

Touted as the largest public works project in the nation's history, the Big Dig, according to former MTA chairman Matthew Amorello, rivaled "anything in the history of the world built by men." That it is such a mess financially (a $2.5 billion project authorized over Reagan's veto in 1987 that ballooned to nearly $15 billion) and structurally (large and small leaks throughout, falling debris, a collapsed slurry wall and, now, murderous falling ceiling panels) does not bode for public works enthusiasts' aspirations.

"You start from the point where the Big Dig project has cost exponentially more than anybody was ever told it was going to, which in and of itself shakes public confidence and promotes criticism," Massachusetts House Minority Leader Brad Jones told me. "Then when you see what you got for what you paid -- the leaks and the bolts and the associated failure issues -- that only compounds the lack of public confidence, not only in this project, but the next time public officials anywhere come back for another project of any magnitude."

As if on cue, within days of my conversation with Jones, Harry Reid invoked the now deadly Big Dig specter to argue against the nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain. "It's the same kind of thing, a big hole, the same kind of deal," Reid argued. An editorial in the Boston Phoenix called for a federal investigation, thundering "we were all canaries sent into a $14.6 billion coal mine." Andrew Cline has suggested naming a tunnel after Del Valle as "a reminder of how much we risk when we take the government's word on faith."

If earmarks weren't consistently used in such a dishonest way at the federal level, the ghost of the Big Dig might prove problematic for legislators seeking support for similar projects. Unfortunately, there is little accountability at the federal dollar spigot. Constituencies that would never countenance wasteful pie-in-the-sky plans if the brunt of the costs would have to be carried locally have few qualms about accepting federal largesse for identical plans. Indeed, it seems boosters of the Big Dig specifically sold the project as a money maker for the city.

"The hope for thousands of construction and related jobs in the 1990s is a vital element in the coalition supporting the project and shows that Bostonians are once again turning to their government to secure economic goals for the community," Lawrence Kennedy wrote in his 1992 book Planning the City Upon a Hill.

Nevertheless, what political figure with long-term ambitions outside the Bay State is going to take similar gamble on a monster public works project -- financial windfall or no -- with an example like this? Romney is looking good right now seizing control of an out of control mess, but it is a moment in time not easily re-created. Politicians seeking to divine a lesson from nearly twenty years of Big Dig history must realize that at a statistical level they are more likely to end up caught in a mess than playing hero in the aftermath. Likewise, few politicians have Romney's supremely cool head or a proven methodical approach to problem solving.

"It is a delicate balancing act, because it's difficult to come out and say, 'You should have no confidence at all,' create a panic when you want to be calming and reassuring," Jones agreed. "I think the Governor, both by past experience and temperament and personality, is someone who has the ability to do that."

None of this takes away from the simple fact that the failures of the Big Dig have been painful to friend and foe alike in Massachusetts.

"It has been very dispiriting," Jones said. "On paper [the Big Dig] is obviously a tremendous feat of engineering. Now I'm left like a lot of people sort of scratching my head saying, 'We built the pyramids and they've last for such a long time, but with modern tools and technology we can't build a tunnel that'll be hold up and be safe?"

--Shawn Macomber is a 2006 Phillips Foundation Journalism fellow living in Boston. His website is www.shawnmacomber.com.

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Chemical & Engineering News
August 14, 2006

Volume 84, Number 33

DOE Continues Nuclear Push

Nuclear waste reprocessing gets aid, encouragement in new department plan

Jeff Johnson

Last week, the Department of Energy quickened the pace of its plan to develop technologies and facilities to reprocess spent nuclear fuel in the U.S. It announced $20 million in aid to public and commercial groups to conduct siting studies needed to build plants that would be part of a system to reuse spent nuclear fuel.

The announcement is part of the Bush Administration's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, a $250 million proposal to expand U.S. use of nuclear power and for the first time to overcome a 1970s presidential ban on reprocessing spent nuclear fuel in the U.S.

Specifically, DOE is interested in supporting construction of two types of commercial-scale facilities: a "consolidated fuel treatment center" to separate used nuclear fuel into waste and reusable products and an "advanced burner reactor" to generate electricity while transmuting long-lived transuranic elements into shorter lived fission products.

The plan offers up to $5 million in support for a single-site study. DOE is particularly interested in sites in geographical areas that have community and state support, says Dennis Spurgeon, DOE assistant secretary for nuclear energy, who made the announcement.

The department is on a fast track; it wants the proposals within one month and will announce its funding decision by October 2006. It is also seeking guidance and an expression of interest from U.S. and international companies on the potential to use these advanced technologies in the U.S.

Meanwhile, nuclear power, radioactive waste, and fuel reprocessing were also discussed at a recent Senate Energy & Natural Resources Committee hearing. The subject was S. 2587, a bill written by the Bush Administration to speed up and ease permitting by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission of the long-delayed Yucca Mountain underground repository in Nevada. The bill would also strike the 70,000-metric-ton cap on waste storage at the site.

Even with the bill's passage, however, reprocessing, interim nuclear waste storage, and the repository would be needed for nuclear energy to expand, noted committee chairman and nuclear energy proponent Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.), who introduced the Administration's bill.

Domenici called the Yucca Mountain schedule a "slippery thing" and predicted that, even under the Administration's latest revised timeline, it would take until 2040 to get the tonnage of nuclear waste generated to date shipped to Yucca Mountain. He calculated that the repository's capacity would be fully allocated seven years before it is scheduled to open in 2017.

Consequently, Domenici joined DOE, the nuclear industry, and other nuclear advocates at the hearing in pressing for reprocessing as a means to potentially reduce the amount of waste headed to the Nevada repository.

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Kalamazoo Gazette
August 13, 2006

Nuclear power:Get on with it

From The Grand Rapids Press

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 more than 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.

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 U.S. Senate, supported by Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Lansing, and lawsuits by anti-nuclear and environmental groups have stymied progress.

Congress should push the Yucca Mountain project forward.

Michigan needs it. 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.

Nuclear power is a clean, safe and reliable energy source that also would serve to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. Michigan's federal lawmakers should be pushing nuclear power and this time, Sen. Stabenow should be among them.

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
August 12, 2006

Editorial: Court doesn't buy Yucca arguments

State's transportation case falls flat

The state suffered a blow this week in its legal battle to scuttle the Yucca Mountain Project.

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Tuesday unanimously rejected Nevada's challenge to the Department of Energy's nuclear waste transportation plans.

"We all thought it was one of our best cases," said Bob Loux, director of the state's Agency for Nuclear Projects. "Obviously, this would have brought everything in the transportation arena to a halt."

In the wake of the decision, however, DOE transportation plans for Yucca will move forward. Currently, the agency is studying the possibility of moving the waste via a 318-mile rail line it would build from Caliente across rural Nevada.

Attorneys for the state argued that the DOE had -- among other things -- violated federal environmental law in formulating its strategy. Not so, said the court.

"We conclude that the DOE's analysis ... is adequate," wrote Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson, before issuing a stinging rebuke of Nevada's case. "It is well settled that the court will not 'flyspeck' an agency's environmental analysis looking for any deficiency, no matter how minor."

Over the years, Nevada's efforts to thwart the nuclear repository in the courts have met with only limited success. Despite the DOE's judicial victories, bureaucratic bungling on this behind-schedule, budget-busting boondoggle known as the Yucca Mountain Project continues to plague the agency and attract the attention of Congress -- and that, not the courts, may eventually prove to be Nevada's best friend.

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Deseret Morning News
August 12, 2006

Lobbying tally climbs in nuclear waste debate

By Suzanne Struglinski
Deseret Morning News

WASHINGTON — The state of Utah paid a lobbyist $45,000 last year to help battle nuclear waste while the consortium of companies looking to bring waste to Utah has spent more than $1 million on lobbying since 1998.

The extra attention — and money — paid by both sides of the nuclear waste debate show how serious each is about its objective and how tense the legislative negotiations were at the end of last year.

"Keeping high-level nuclear waste out of Utah is a high priority for Gov. Huntsman, and we feel it is important to take any and all steps necessary to do it," said Mike Mower, spokesman for Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.

The state had a $45,000 contract with Dukto Worldwide lobbyist William Simmons, a former aide to former Rep. Jim Hansen, R-Utah. Simmons' 2005 lobbying disclosure report said he was hired to "assist/advise client on issues related to high level nuclear waste." Mower said it was awarded through a competitive bidding process.

Simmons helped coordinate efforts to push a major roadblock for Private Fuel Storage through Congress last year. Huntsman renewed it through 2006 for another $45,000, Mower said. It has not been decided if the contract will be renewed for 2007, Mower said.

Simmons said he met with staff on relevant committees and followed appropriations bills and other energy policy legislation that made its way through Congress, including the Defense Authorization bill.

Meanwhile, Private Fuel Storage has paid more than $1 million since 1998 for its own lobbyist in Washington, according to lobbying records and the Center for Public Integrity. This includes a $40,000 contract for 2005 with MGN Inc. The 2005 lobbying disclosure forms specifies that its work revolved around the Defense Authorization bill. Steve Barringer and Nils Johnson from MGN Inc. moved to another firm, Holland & Hart, in April. Neither Barringer nor Johnson could be reached for comment as to what they are working on for PFS this year, if anything.

PFS wants to store nuclear waste on the Goshute Indian Reservation in Tooele County until the government opens the planned federal storage site at yucca Mountain in Nevada. The state strongly opposes the idea but the Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a license earlier this year to PFS. The consortium is now looking for customers to invest in constructing the storage site and to move waste there, but has also asked the Energy Department to pay for waste storage there.

Mower said the "extra set of hands" worked with the congressional delegation to watch various pieces of legislation and represent the governor on the issue.

"It was so pressing at the time, it was an 'all hands on deck' situation," Mower said.

After the state lost its effort to block the commission from giving PFS its license, it filed a case appealing the license in federal court but legislative options also remained.

Before he left office, Hansen had initiated a bill that would create a federal Wilderness Area to protect the Utah Test and Training Range used by Hill Air Force Base but also blocked PFS from building a rail line designed to ship waste to the Goshute site.

Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, resurrected the idea and introduced a slightly different but similar bill.

Congress eventually approved the Defense Authorization bill with Bishop's provision, causing the delegation and the state to declare a big victory in the PFS fight.

But the victory did not come easy. As House and Senate negotiators finished up the final version of the Defense Authorization bill there was an almost hour-by-hour change as to whether it would include a Bishop provision until all those involved ultimately agreed to let it pass.

Julius Hobson, an adjunct associate professor of political management at George Washington University, said it is not unusual for a state to hire a lobbyist for some extra help on an issue and that it should be viewed no differently than a company hiring a lobbyist.

"The delegation is stretched over a number of issues," Hobson said. "They have their committee assignments and a huge number of constituents."

He said a lobbyist can concentrate on one single issue and go at it "full-force."

"It's like a rifle shot," Hobson said. "Others do it and you would be remiss if you didn't. (Hiring a lobbyist) is part of doing everything you can possibly do on an issue, a 'leaving no stone unturned.' "

Nuclear waste continues to be a hot topic this session and a compromise between similar storage provisions in the House and Senate energy and water spending bill may not be worked out until the 11th hour this year as well. The Senate bill contains $10 million to start a federal temporary storage program until yucca opens. The Senate bill specifically disqualifies Utah from getting a federal site because Private Fuel Storage already has a license to store waste in Skull Valley. But the bill does not prohibit companies from using PFS instead of a government waste facility. The Senate has not yet taken up the bill.

The House passed its version of the energy and water spending bill, which contained $30 million for the temporary storage of nuclear waste, saying the government could consider private sites as well as federal facilities to store it.

Action on the Senate bill is not likely to take place until after the November election and lobbyists on both sides are the issues will be watching the debate closely.

--E-mail: suzanne@desnews.com

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Salt Lake Tribune
August 12, 2006

Energy chairman defends temporary N-storage sites

Not in Utah or Nevada: Senator wants a solution that promotes Yucca Mountain, safely deals with waste in the interim

By Robert Gehrke
The Salt Lake Tribune

WASHINGTON - Senate Energy Committee Chairman Pete Domenici defended a plan to create temporary nuclear waste storage sites - while prohibiting the waste from coming to Utah - as a key piece of a nuclear waste strategy.

The Coalition of Northeastern Governors sent Domenici, R-N.M., a letter last week arguing that storing waste in as many as 31 states would be more expensive and less secure than a plan to bury it permanently at Yucca Mountain, Nev.

But Domenici argued that Yucca Mountain, which is 19 years behind schedule, won't open until 2017, and it will take another 23 years to move existing waste to the site. There needs to be, he wrote in a letter to the governors, a practical interim solution.

"I am interested in a solution that will keep the Yucca Mountain project moving, but also acknowledges the need to safely deal with spent fuel until the project is completed," he wrote.

Interim storage would also give the Energy Department time to develop technology to recycle nuclear waste, reducing the amount of waste that will have to be buried at Yucca Mountain, Domenici wrote.

Domenici's proposal, backed by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, is included in an energy spending bill pending in the Senate. It would create temporary storage sites but would require that the waste stay in states that generate nuclear power. Regional sites are also on option under the plan.

The plan also prohibits storage in Nevada or Utah, which would scuttle plans by Private Fuel Storage to park 44,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation, about 50 miles from Salt Lake City.

The Northeastern states are the largest consumers of nuclear generated power. For example, nuclear reactors produce more than 70 percent of the electricity in Vermont, and more than half in New Jersey.

St. George Daily Spectrum
August 12, 2006

Nuclear option is no option

County commissioners in Clark County, Nev., have given Peggy Maze Johnson $84,000 to get out of town.

And, it's all because of her politics.

Johnson, executive director of Citizen Alert, an activist group based in Las Vegas, is using that money to travel a route that nuclear waste will travel to get to a proposed repository at Yucca Mountain - basically a cave in southeastern Nevada.

"My frustration is that people across the country think it (nuclear waste) is going to magically disappear from where they are and appear here," Johnson says.

Not the case.

That highly toxic waste will travel through 43 states before it arrives at Yucca Mountain.

Johnson applied for a few grants three years ago to help awaken the public to the problem. It wasn't until she hooked up with Rory Reid, the Clark County Commission Chairman and son of Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., that she got the money.

Part of the message, of course, is the danger of moving this waste across the country.

The other, however, is a more global look at nuclear waste, nuclear power and the environment. And, Johnson is definitely a friend of the environment.

"What people have to understand is that nuclear power is not your friend," she said. "If we go at the rate we are now, we're going to need 22 repositories the size of Yucca Mountain for all of the waste. So, where are they going to put this stuff?"

Good question.

The problem is we have some immediate concerns.

There's this little thing called global warming that is beginning to have an impact on our climate and we're being told that nuclear energy is the answer.

Not true. While we wait for people to realize that there are such renewable energy sources like solar or wind power, we can turn to liquefied gas and gassified coal, which are not ideal, but better alternatives for the short-term - probably the next 20 or 30 years - until we get our arms around viable alternatives. They will contribute to a bit of pollution and foul the environment, but not as badly as nukes, which last forever.

And, make no mistake, we are in a world of hurt if we don't come up with viable alternatives. Forget about the trouble in the oil-rich Middle East, oil is a disappearing resource. No matter how you politicize it, there is a finite amount. When it's gone, it's gone.

For decades our leaders, from both sides of the aisle, have given lip service to developing fuel alternatives. With disappearing glaciers, odd temperatures and weather conditions cropping up in strange corners of the world and other phenomena, we have no other choice than to finally do something, whether it's on the agenda of Exxon or not.

--Call Ed Kociela, City Editor of The Spectrum, at 674-6237. E-mail is ekociela@thespectrum.com. For additional commentary, go to southernutahblog.com.

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Scripps News
August 12, 2006

Deadly nuke rods piling up in California

By Keay Davidson

Thousands of tons of deadly radioactive rods of spent nuclear fuel and waste have accumulated at three California nuclear power plants because the federal government has failed to open a permanent nuclear burial site in Nevada that was supposed to be ready eight years ago.

And the delay is only getting worse: The Department of Energy says the nuclear dump site won't open until 2017 _ almost two decades past the original 1998 inauguration target and five years beyond the most recent scheduled opening date.

The latest delay climaxes a yearlong debacle at the Yucca Mountain Project in Nevada _ a debacle during which staff scientists were suspected of fraud, federal investigators blasted the project's management, and project officials announced plans to revamp the operation and redesign the burial site. On July 14, according to news reports, officials said they'd lay off up to 500 employees as part of the planned reorganization.

The Energy Department estimated in 2001 that the facility would cost $60 billion. But in February, Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman admitted at a conference of nuclear power industrialists that there's no trustworthy cost estimate.

Energy Department officials say the facility will offer a permanent solution to the nation's deadliest waste, protecting the environment from the radiation of spent nuclear fuel for 10,000 years or longer. Critics say the computer models the Energy Department used to make such predictions are unreliable.

To its harshest critics, the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository looks dead in the water.

"The Yucca Mountain nuke dump has been riddled with scientific, health and safety problems from the beginning," said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., in a statement. "I don't believe the dump will ever open."

But project defenders are confident they'll get their act together and overcome long-standing technical objections to the site _ especially fears that the super-hot nuclear fuel and wastes could leak into groundwater and spread for miles far faster than anyone dreamed when the project was proposed in the 1970s.

Someday "Yucca Mountain will open," Paul Golan, deputy director of the Energy Department's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, told The Chronicle. "We're going to demonstrate that we have good science, good process, good engineering. We have good quality standards in place. This (repository) is certainly a challenge that this country can solve _ and can solve credibly."

Utility officials in California and across the nation are not pleased to be stuck with growing mountains of spent fuel and waste that the Energy Department had promised to take off their hands long ago. Nationwide, more than 50,000 tons of poisonous, super-hot rods of spent nuclear fuel are sitting in cooling ponds and dry casks at atomic power plants awaiting the day when they will be shipped to Yucca Mountain.

Several utilities have sued the department to recover costs of on-site storage and won; more suits are planned.

PG&E officials, who run the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant and the now-defunct Humboldt Bay reactor, are among the litigants. They have demanded $100 million in damages and say they expect a court decision in September. So far, the Diablo Canyon plant has accumulated more than 1,000 tons of spent fuel and waste; the much smaller Humboldt Bay plant, which closed in the 1970s, has almost 30 tons.

Southern California Edison spokesman Ray Golden told The Chronicle that the utility is reviving legal action against the Energy Department, which had been temporarily delayed, for its failure to take spent fuel and waste now accumulating at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station near San Diego. A pool at that plant stores 3,000 tons of spent fuel; an additional 300 tons is stored in dry casks.

Utility officials insist that it's safe to store the fuel and nuclear waste on site. But anti-nuclear activists fear the spent fuel and waste storage facilities could become juicy targets for terrorists _ say, a pilot flying a plane filled with explosives.

On June 2, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, responding to a lawsuit by the anti-nuclear activist group San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace, ordered the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to study the possibility of a terrorist attack at Diablo Canyon.

Nearly a half-century has passed since the National Academy of Sciences recommended burying spent fuel from nuclear power plants at an underground site, and it's been two decades since Congress designated Yucca Mountain as that site.

Nothing else like the proposed Yucca Mountain repository, which would be operated by the Energy Department, has been built. The facility some 70 miles northwest of Las Vegas would consist of a series of tunnels 1,000 feet underground, where spent fuel rods from the nation's nuclear plants would be permanently buried.

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Worcester Telegram
August 12, 2006

Romney unveils plan to reduce energy demands

State facilities must conserve; award lottery proposed

By Glen Johnson
The Associated Press

BOSTON— Trying to stave off power shortages and high electricity costs, Gov. Mitt Romney yesterday unveiled a plan to reduce demand and increase supply in Massachusetts.

Within the next month, Romney will require more efficient energy use in state buildings, increased use of biofuels in the state automobile fleet and the creation of a lottery awarding prizes to consumers who buy energy-efficient equipment.

Romney also plans to seek market-based electricity pricing, in which consumers would pay more for running appliances and other electrical devices at peak periods, while paying less at off-peak times. Overall bills would not rise, he said, but consumers would have an incentive to consume power during lower-cost periods.

Through a mix of executive orders and legislation he will request from the House and Senate, the governor will seek to establish a “negawatts’ program in which utility companies pay customers who reduce their energy use, support the establishment of “selective’ wind power projects and work with businesses and universities to create deep-water offshore wind farms.

The governor said the plan is necessary to avoid rolling blackouts in the future, such as those recently experienced in California, and to ensure the state´s electricity demand does not exceed its capacity, which is predicted to occur in 2013.

Romney said adopting the proposal could help the state avoid paying subsidies the federal government has threatened to charge to boost power company revenues and encourage them to build more plants in Massachusetts. The companies have been reluctant to build new plants because the state´s relatively low electricity prices mean insufficient returns. The subsidies have been projected at $10 billion over the next 10 years, but reducing demand would eliminate the need for new plants, Romney said.

“The alternative is power plants, with additional cost, with additional pollution, with a long permitting process and the potential of higher and higher electric rates in Massachusetts,’ Romney said at a Statehouse news conference.

During the fall, Massachusetts will request proposals for wind and biomass power-generation facilities at state buildings and on state land, convene a summit on advanced energy technologies and seek a decision on siting offshore LNG receiving terminals.

Romney opposes an onshore facility proposed for Weaver´s Cove in Fall River, but he has voiced support for a plan to create an offshore terminal on Outer Brewster Island at the edge of Boston Harbor.

The governor opposes the Cape Wind plant proposed for Nantucket Sound, which he says is a pristine, nationally known tourist destination. But he supports similar projects in Princeton, Hull and other Massachusetts locations.

A spokesman for MassPIRG, a public advocacy group that focuses on state power issues, did not immediately return calls or an e-mail seeking comment on the Romney plan.

Sue Reid, a staff attorney at the Conservation Law Foundation, called for swift implementation of Romney´s proposal.

“To effectively confront the climate-change crisis and meet our energy needs, we need to do everything the governor is proposing on efficiency, conservation, clean energy and more,’ she said.

In rolling out such a large-scale proposal only five months before he leaves office, Romney conceded he will not be around to see all of it enacted. Indeed, in answering a question about the plan, the potential Republican presidential candidate indicated he has been thinking about energy issues elsewhere in the country.

The Romney plan does not call for the construction of any new, conventional power plants, but the governor said “the nation is going to have to explore nuclear power sources again.’

The problem, he said, is disposing of the waste, an issue that has plagued President Bush after Nevadans accused him of flip-flopping on a campaign promise to bar storage of nuclear waste at the federal government´s Yucca Mountain facility.

Romney said seeking a safe way to dispose nuclear waste dovetails with his plan, which calls for greater cooperation between the state, private industry and local universities to develop alternate energy supplies and clean forms of energy disposal.

“I´m hopeful that as we invest in this energy sector, that here in Massachusetts we´ll find ways to dispose of, or to reuse, the waste that comes from nuclear power plants,’ the governor said.

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
August 11, 2006

Airspace: Air Force negotiating Yucca rights

DOE has proposed controlling 229 square miles around site

By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- The Air Force confirmed Thursday it is negotiating airspace rights over Yucca Mountain to balance pilot access to the Nellis Air Force Range and security at the nuclear waste site that has been proposed nearby.

As part of its plan to build a repository for highly radioactive used nuclear fuel, the Department of Energy has proposed controlling use of 229 square miles of land now managed by other federal agencies surrounding the Yucca site.

The department also is seeking to designate a "no-fly zone" as part of the project. Ward Sproat, director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, told Congress last week the restricted flight area would be 4 miles in radius centered on the mountain.

In a statement Thursday, the Air Force confirmed its officials and DOE counterparts are negotiating flight rules over the repository.

"Air Force and DOE representatives in Nevada continue to discuss potential control measures to accommodate both agencies' missions," the service said in a statement issued in response to a reporter's query.

Negotiators "are still working together to refine mutually acceptable control measures to limit or preclude any operational impact on Air Force flying missions in the Nevada Test and Training Range.

"We remain optimistic agreement will be reached such that any control measures will have no appreciable impact on Air Force operations," the statement said.

The Air Force's willingness to talk about flight controls near Yucca Mountain appears to represent a shift in thinking. In September 2003, top Air Force officials said that restrictions on aircraft operating in the Nellis Air Force Range airspace "will negatively impact our readiness activities."

"Overflight restrictions are untenable," Air Force Secretary James G. Roche and chief of staff Gen. John Jumper said in a letter to congressional leaders. They described the Nellis training range as a "national treasure" that enables the military to practice large-scale operations.

Air Force officials at the Pentagon and in Nevada could not be reached on Thursday. Talks are being held in the state between DOE representatives in Las Vegas and Air Force liaison officers at the Nevada Test Site, officials said.

"They are our neighbors and we will be working with them on air restrictions, there is nothing wrong with that at all," DOE spokesman William Greene said of the Air Force.

The Air Force controls 3.1 million acres and 12,000 square miles of airspace over southern and central Nevada that it uses for testing and munitions training, electronic combat, and air-to-air combat exercises. Flight programs are operated from Nellis Air Force Base.

Nevada officials who oppose the Yucca project have criticized the idea of allowing DOE to set flight rules on the Air Force. At a Senate hearing last week, Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said it set "a very dangerous precedent."

The Energy Department is seeking to restrict flights near the repository to buttress its licensing bid before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects.

As part of its licensing process, DOE has studied the probabilities and potential outcomes of plane crashes at the Yucca site, where canisters of highly radioactive material will be kept above ground as well as within a warren of mountain tunnels."The NRC wants some definitive proof they have this issue covered," Loux said. "If they have a no-fly zone or whatever that is all related to satisfying the NRC."

Loux said he expected prolonged talks between DOE and the Air Force. There is sentiment among officers at Nellis Air Force Base against Yucca flight restrictions, he said, based on conversations between officers and state representatives.

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Las Vegas SUN
August 11, 2006

Editorial: Don't trash Nevada

Northeastern governors oppose a temporary storage plan for nuclear waste

A group of Northeastern governors is opposing a U.S. Senate bill that proposes to temporarily store nuclear waste nearer the reactors that produce it.

According to the Associated Press, the Coalition of Northeastern Governors has written a letter protesting the Senate spending bill that calls for regional storage of spent nuclear fuel in states that generate commercial nuclear power.

The provision - added by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.; Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah; and Energy Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M. - specifically bars using Nevada or Utah as temporary storage sites.

A site in Utah has been named as a potential interim dump.

But Nevada is where these Northeasterners want the waste they created to be buried. They fear temporary sites will delay the opening of a permanent storage facility at Yucca Mountain. And, they say, the bill's timetable would result in "a hastily created network" of temporary facilities without allowing enough time to determine whether such storage is safe.

These governors seem unable - or unwilling - to see that haste and safety concerns are the very reasons Yucca Mountain isn't being built.

It is not a safe place to store high-level nuclear waste, and the government has been trying to cut corners and massage data to build it anyway. Those who are creating this waste back East can just keep it.

Nevada is not the nation's nuclear trash heap.

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Pahrump Valley Times
August 11, 2006

Agency chief says Yucca plans not necessary

Loux Believes Yucca will Never be Licensed

CARSON CITY -- Nevada officials have objected to the U.S. Department of Energy's plans to build a "road to nowhere" along with other construction projects at Yucca Mountain, saying the work is illegal and unnecessary.

DOE and its Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management have submitted a draft environmental assessment proposing a wide range of infrastructure improvements at Yucca Mountain, the site about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas proposed by DOE for the nation's first high-level nuclear waste repository.

Bob Loux, executive director for Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects, outlined Nevada's objections to this proposal in a letter sent this week to Dr. Jane Summerson, an environmental assessment document manager for DOE, according to an Aug. 8 prepared statement.

Loux summed up the two main reasons why Nevada contends the entire proposal is unnecessary: "First, if DOE does not receive a license, or DOE's application is further delayed, this project will spend millions of dollars for only a tiny return. Second, the no-action alternative appears capable of fulfilling all of the stated project purposes.

"The proposed action contained in the draft EA (environmental assessment) is unnecessary, unjustified and lacking in legal authority," Loux concluded in the letter. "The proposed facilities and infrastructure can only be justified to support the construction and operation of a Yucca Mountain repository, something that is not permitted under law until DOE has received a construction authorization from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission."

Loux said Nevada officials and others have raised enough scientific and safety concerns about the Yucca Mountain Project over the years that he believes the site will never be licensed to hold nuclear waste. As a result, he said DOE's proposed multimillion-dollar construction program would be the real waste.

"This plan could only be justified if the Yucca Mountain repository is approved, waiste and there is no certainty that will ever occur," Loux said. "In short, the EA does not credibly explain why DOE is pursuing these improvements."

In addition to new buildings, power lines and other infrastructure on the Yucca site, DOE proposes to build about 25 miles of new and replacement roads during a two-year construction period. Loux said one of the more unnecessary parts of DOE's plan calls for a two-lane, 36-foot-wide paved road to the crest of Yucca Mountain, "even though no scientific work has been done on top of the mountain.

"This is really a road to nowhere," he said.

Nevada also objects to the increased use of groundwater the DOE plan would require. Loux said DOE's proposal would require using more water than DOE has said in court proceedings that it needs, and more than the state has allowed the federal agency to use at the site.

He said DOE is also being misleading when it cites "the health and safety of its workers, regulators and visitors" to the Yucca Mountain site as the main reason for its planned construction projects. In fact, he said the director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management told the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee as recently as Aug. 3 that DOE's plans for new infrastructure at Yucca Mountain are unrelated to health and safety issues.

The two-year, multimillion-dollar construction program is also more significant than DOE has suggested, according to Loux.

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Pahrump Valley Times
August 11, 2006

Nevada loses latest bid to derail Yucca

By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON, D.C. --Nevada suffered a setback Tuesday as its latest attempt to derail the government's plans for a Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository was rebuffed.

A three-judge federal court panel declined a Nevada lawsuit charging that the Energy Department had violated environmental law and federal procedures when it formed a strategy to ship radioactive spent fuel to the Nevada site. "We conclude that some of Nevada's claims are unripe for review and the remaining claims are without merit," Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson wrote in a 26-page opinion filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

Henderson was joined in the ruling by Judges Harry Edwards and A. Raymond Randolph. The judges heard oral arguments last October.

The ruling preserves the status quo for the Yucca project. The Department of Energy is studying a 318-mile corridor from Caliente across rural Nevada in which to build a railroad to the proposed repository site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

"We are very pleased with the court's decision," said Craig Stevens, a DOE spokesman. "The court's ruling today upheld the transportation aspects of the department's comprehensive environmental impact statement for the Yucca Mountain Project."

Joe Egan, Nevada's lead nuclear waste attorney, said state officials are evaluating whether to appeal the ruling. Egan said the state disagreed with the court's reasoning that it was premature to challenge DOE on elements of its railroad plans.

"It is really clear that having ruled against us in such draconian fashion it just seemed they didn't want to do anything to upset Yucca Mountain," Egan said.

Stevens said DOE attorneys are evaluating the decision for possible impacts on other parts of the project. For instance, DOE is weighing a possible alternative railroad line to the repository through the Walker River Paiute reservation in western Nevada.

DOE also has made other changes since the Nevada lawsuit was filed last year, including initiating redesigns for canisters that would carry nuclear waste to the repository.

"DOE has radically altered its transportation plans," Egan said. "The net effect is that it has gone ahead and started a new analysis. In a sense they have rendered their previous analysis moot."

In the court's ruling, Henderson wrote that DOE was within its authority in how it managed environmental impact studies and other documents that supported its transportation planning.

"We conclude that DOE's analysis of the environmental impacts of its rail corridor selection in its (final environmental impact statement) is adequate," Henderson wrote.

"It is well settled that the court will not 'flyspeck' an agency's environmental analysis looking for any deficiency no matter how minor," the judge wrote.

The court declined to consider other issues raised by the state, saying it was too early and DOE had not yet made final decisions on them.

Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond, said the state's options may be limited.

"I doubt the Supreme Court would take review and I don't think it would be worth petitioning the entire court," said Tobias, formerly a professor at the Boyd School of Law at UNLV.

Rulings made by judicial panels may be reconsidered by all the judges in the appeals circuit.

But Tobias said Henderson and Randolph, who were placed on the court by President George H.W. Bush, and Edwards, who was installed by President Carter, "are very much representative of the court and I think it is pretty unlikely" that other judges would reconsider their ruling.

In the 10 months since oral arguments, Nevada officials and attorneys had expressed confidence the state would prevail on at least some of its arguments. They said Tuesday they were surprised and disappointed.

"We all thought it was one of our best cases." said Bob Loux, director of the state Agency for Nuclear Projects. "Obviously this would have brought everything in the transportation arena to a halt."

Loux said the state would likely file new lawsuits later on the matters that the court said were premature to be considered at the present time.

The state has two other active cases pending related to Yucca Mountain, although neither are major.

Oral arguments are set for September in Washington where the state is challenging a federal regulation dealing with repository licensing.

In a second case, state officials have filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit in federal court in Reno seeking to obtain a copy of DOE's draft license application for the repository.

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Pahrump Valley Times
August 11, 2006

Trio of Democrats seeks Assembly nomination

By Mark Waite
PVT

Three Democrats competing in the Aug. 15 primary in the Nevada Assembly District 36 race have all sought political office in Nye County before.

Harley Kulkin, 55, has owned Servco, a Pahrump heating and air-conditioning business, since 1994. He previously lived in Minden and, before that, Ridgecrest, Calif., and the Los Angeles area, where he was a heating and air-conditioning mechanic.

Kulkin has had a television talk show and served briefly on the Pahrump Regional Planning Commission. He ran unsuccessfully for Nye County Commissioner of District 1 in 2004; incumbent Roberta "Midge" Carver won that race 1,749 votes to 827.

"I was on the planning commission during the master plan. I believe zoning should be about organization, not elimination of lifestyles," Kulkin said.

A Johnnie resident, Kulkin said he was instrumental in the establishment of a more permissive rural homestead zone in the master plan for Pahrump Valley. He also took credit for pushing a wildlife habitat zone.

Kulkin said he worked at the China Lake Naval Weapons facility in California. While Nevada has fought against the Yucca Mountain project, Kulkin said it could bring high-paid, professional jobs like physicists, to Pahrump , if it's done right.

"The nuclear waste at the test site is only 5 percent spent. There's 95 percent of the renewable energy left when we put it in storage" Kulkin said. "If we started looking into it, we would find continued uses for that fuel and all that could be done in Nye County and Nevada. We need to bring outside revenues into our state. They're trying to tax us more and more."

Kulkin doesn't think businesses that provide jobs should have to pay the impact fees charged in Pahrump.

He said residential growth needs to be slowed down; one way would be by requiring six water rights per lot instead of two.

Kulkin doesn't like the county's bill draft request for a water district. "A water district gives somebody an awful lot of power to control water around here," he said.

Regarding the proposed half-percent sales tax increase, Kulkin said, "we do need it, and it's such an insignificant amount for each family, they probably wouldn't even notice it."

Asked what specific issues he'd like to address, Kulkin said, "I want to solve the illegal alien problem, and that's real simple. The state of Nevada needs to fine employers."

Kulkin said he doesn't support Assemblywoman Sharron Angle's tax initiative to lower taxes on casinos. "I know that's going to be a big shortfall for the state of Nevada."

Kulkin instead would like to see the state freeze property taxes for people 62 years or older and the handicapped.

"Nobody should be taxed out of their home when they retire," he said.

A law should be passed so public entities don't have to buy water rights for things like a school or a park, he said.

Kulkin is also enthusiastic about a theme park in Pahrump, which he said would make the Pahrump Valley a destination for tourists.

Kulkin felt his Democratic party label won't have any effect if he should proceed to the general election.

"The average voter has enough hands-on contact with the person they're going to vote for," Kulkin said. "I think their reason for voting for me will be for me as a person."

Angie Cochran and her husband own I and S Insulation. She ran unsuccessfully for the Pahrump town board in 2002. But she edged out David Bennett to win the Democratic primary race for the U.S. representative District 2 seat in 2004, before losing to incumbent U.S. Rep. Jim Gibbons 8,781 votes to 4,102 that November.

Cochran said she first became involved in politics when she moved to Pahrump 16 years ago and went to the Pahrump Community Center to protest the closure of Mickey Street.

Cochran said the most important thing that needs to be addressed is infrastructure. She mentioned the need for traffic lights in Pahrump on Highway 160 and Highway 372.

Cochran also said Pahrump should collect more funding from developers.

"We should have got a lot more in roads and parks and street lights because they had put in 400, 600 homes in different places," Cochran said.

Water is another critical issue facing the state, she said.

"Rural Nevada does not have to solve the problems of Clark County and Nye," Cochran said, referring to the water feud with Las Vegas and White Pine County. When she first moved to Pahrump, Cochran said she was informed Pahrump had a big aquifer. Now people are told there isn't such a bountiful supply of water, she said.

"We will have to depend on Yucca Mountain for the payments equal to taxes," Cochran said. "We pay pretty hefty taxes as it is."

Money for improvements should've been charged to developers instead of taking it out of Yucca Mountain money or increasing sales taxes, she said.

"If you ask developers, they tell us the reason we don't have big business is because we have too much red tape. But then when it comes to infrastructure, they have to come up with something," Cochran said "Our taxes are not cheap. Our taxes are high, and we don't get that much for our taxes.

"I want to try to represent the people here," she said, "so they have a say when all these people make deals."

Laurayne Murray retired in 1997 after a 32-year career with AT&T. Her last position was executive assistant to the vice-president of consumer products in Pennsylvania. Murray, 57, and her husband Tim, settled in Pahrump in 2001 after traveling around full-time in a recreational vehicle.

Murray finished second in the September 2004 primary and was second again in the November 2004 general election to take one of two seats up for grabs on the Pahrump Town Board. She followed in her father's footsteps  he was on the city council in her hometown of Davenport, Iowa.

"I'm the only candidate that's retired, that will be available on a full-time basis to make sure we're represented on all those committees, including the interim committees," Murray said.

Murray said she attended almost all the Nye County Commission meetings and the stormwater task force meetings to keep on top of what the county wants in the upcoming session of the legislature. She became aware that many times counties run into obstacles in the Nevada laws.

"These laws being established are mostly influenced by the urban areas. We need more attention to how those can be written to accommodate the needs of the rurals as well," Murray said.

She is a proponent of alternative energy. But Murray said, "In Esmeralda County the state wanted to bring in more geothermal business, which is good. But the way they were designing the incentives, it would take money away from the county."

State officials want to diversify the economy from gaming and mining, and the rural areas afford a prime opportunity to do that, she said.

Murray wants to continue developing the Pahrump Great Basin College campus.

Nevada also needs to improve health services, she said, citing the example of a Tonopah doctor who can't transfer patients by helicopter to Las Vegas because the hospitals are full. She added that Nye County doesn't have a health department and Gabbs residents are worried about ambulance service.

The process of having to prove water rights has led to wasteful uses of water, Murray said. The law should be changed.

Murray said she's traveled extensively throughout the big district since January and has visited every community except tiny Ione, in remote northwestern Nye County.

"There's a couple thousand more registered Republicans than Democrats," Murray said. "There's also 4,000 independents, so you have to look at that, and I think I have a great deal of crossover support like I did when I ran for the Pahrump Town Board."

Democrats are the majority party in the Assembly, which she said would allow her better committee assignments and more consideration on bill drafts.

"I'm actually very fiscally conservative. When you go back to the public record and look what I've done locally, I'm usually the one who's voting against frivolous spending of taxpayer money" she said.

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Pahrump Valley Times
August 11, 2006

GOP has three up for District 36

By Mark Waite
PVT

Three Republicans will compete in the Tuesday primary in the Nevada Assembly District 36 race.

The winner will face the winner of the Democratic primary, also a three-way race, and a candidate from the Independent American Party, in the Nov. 7 general election.

District 36 represents a vast area of Nevada, from Pahrump to Fallon to Alamo.

Ed Goedhart, 44, is the manager of the Ponderosa Dairy. He also farms 100 acres of alfalfa.

Goedhart graduated with a degree in business and accounting from Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., and came to Southern Nevada in January 1997. He served three terms on the Amargosa Valley Town Advisory Board.

Goedhart is a former chairman of the Science and Technology Regional Development Corp., which implemented the beginnings of an industrial park at the intersection of Highways 95 and 373. Goedhart also served two terms on the Southern Nye County Conservation District.

Goedhart said he hasn't been elected to office but has an extensive background in the happenings in southern Nye County. As manager of a diary, Goedhart said he has had to deal with federal issues, buying water rights and dealing with federal entities.

"As it relates to Pahrump, we're going to look at infrastructure concerns relating to roads, highways, traffic signals and the water and sewer portion long range," Goedhart said of the upcoming session. "I believe that the different counties in this district, it's incumbent on them to develop long-range plans to protect and utilize this resource and keep it under county control."

The law should be changed requiring water rights holders to prove their water rights every five years or lose them, Goedhart said.

"In Pahrump that doesn't make sense to me," Goedhart said. "It doesn't make sense for me to waste water in order to hold onto your water rights."

But entities like the Las Vegas Water Authority should be limited on how long their can lock up water in other basins without doing something with it, he said.

Rural counties, which he said are over 90 percent under federal management, need to develop their own public lands plan, he said.

"You can talk economic development until you're blue in the face, but if you don't take into that discussion available land and water you're going to go nowhere," Goedhart said.

Twenty percent of Nevada's power has to come from green energy by 2015, he said. Parts of his district, perhaps some federal land, could be carved out for solar or wind projects. Goedhart said he's involved with a firm named Solargenics, which has plans for a solar power project on 320 acres on the north side of Mecca Road in Amargosa Valley.

"We've had some challenges trying to draft an ordinance trying to protect women and children against sexual predators and I believe there's something we can do on a state level to help out the community," Goedhart said.

The state needs to strengthen the ethics commission, which has a backlog of 80 complaints, he said. The commission should be required to act on a complaint within 45 days.

Goedhart said some people who don't like the dairy may not vote for him. "There will be a few people that don't like farming and ranching and dairies," he said.

"I think we need someone in office who meets a payroll every week and knows how to live within a budget," Goedhart said. "I take the word public servant to heart. I have a lot of bosses. I have 60,000 constituents. I'm going to have 60,000 bosses."

Ed Higbee Jr., 52, of Alamo, was raised in Lincoln County, went to Southern Utah University and has a ranch in Pahranagat Valley. Higbee has also supervised a Nevada Department of Transportation road crew for 29 years. He also has been involved in coaching middle school basketball and Little League baseball.

Higbee said his father was a Lincoln County commissioner for 20 years. After raising seven children, he feels he has time for politics himself.

"I believe in the Constitution and I believe it's under assault in this day and age," Higbee said. "The major right I think we're under assault is private property. You've got environmentalists, they're using the endangered species laws to try to take over private property rights. You've got big government, the BLM, U.S. Forest Service, all these big agencies that have power behind them, they claim."

Higbee said besides protecting property rights, he would encourage the BLM to put more land up for disposal.

There have to be laws protecting existing water rights, he said.

"Nobody knows how much water is in the aquifer under District 36," Higbee said. "There's also private property rights involved. You have some people that own water; they ought to be able to do what they want if they own the water rights."

Higbee said schools need to be funded well, but decisions about what to teach and how to spend the money should be made at the local level.

Higbee said people in the district are divided on the Yucca Mountain project. "Wherever it goes through District 36, which it will do, everything has to be mitigated up to the standards of each person that's going to deal with it along the way."

Higbee would like to introduce a bill requiring high school students to study the Constitution at least three years.

"I would like to see a bill introduced in the legislature that would put a freeze on fees and taxes for two years. That's one reason that I am running for office. I think that government is getting a little bit too big and too powerful and too much money."

Higbee said a call from an assemblyman would be able to solve traffic problems in Pahrump. He said there have to be some conservation plans in Pahrump where there are concerns about a dropping water table.

Higbee said he will do well, even though he's from more remote Lincoln County, adding he's been in television debates with his Republican party opponents.

John Brown, 82, moved to Pahrump in October 2004. He is a retired salesman for Gray Bar Electric Co. in South San Francisco, where he said he traveled 50,000 miles per year.

He has taken courses at the Community College of Southern Nevada, including a two-year Spanish course, a math course and guitar.

Brown is a U.S. Navy veteran of World War II and the Korean War. He ran for the U.S. Senate in California four times and said he received about 2 percent of the vote.

"I don't take any money from anybody. I think money has replaced principle in politics and I just think that's disgusting," Brown said.

"We've got to get rid of the permanent Congress. I'm a nut about that, and I carry uncirculated $2 bills with Thomas Jefferson on the front and the Declaration of Independence on the back," he said. "The entrepreneur is a major element in our society and I'm a capitalist through and through. I'm very conservative. I believe abortion is murder.

"I would challenge every bit of legislation and say, 'Don't we have some laws on the books today in that category?' And I think we need somebody to stop the legislative process and I think that government governs best that governs least."

Brown said there are so many laws on the books, Sheriff Tony DeMeo doesn't know what to enforce.

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Pahrump Valley Times
August 11, 2006

Holmes clarifies stance

PVT

Candidate for Nye County sheriff Ted Holmes objected to an interview summary of statements he made in regard to detention methods employed by Sheriff Joe Araipo of Maricopa County, Ariz., whom he said he would like to emulate.

Holmes objected specifically to the mention of "chain gang" work details as a component of Araipo's "get tough" methods.

Holmes said he would like to see, instead, "road work crews.

"I stated I would look at and probably incorporate some of his methods and ideas in our jail system here in Nye County," Holmes said. "His methods are a deterrent to criminals to criminals and are constitutionally legal as well as cost-effective."

Holmes also objected to the statement that he works "at the Yucca Mountain Repository project site in security."

In a prepared statement he said, "I do not work for Yucca Mountain nor have I ever worked for Yucca Mountain."

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FAS Strategic Security Blog
August 11, 2006

A project of the Federation of American Scientists

Plutonium Reprocessing: two steps forward, one step back.

The administration has submitted a $250M request to Congress to start work on a plutonium recycling program as part of its Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, or GNEP, proposal. Trying to figure out exactly what the proposal is has been like trying to nail Jell-o to the wall. Whatever criticism is raised, DOE responds that, no, it isn´t quite that. So I was getting a good picture of what GNEP was not but could not figure out what it was.

Part of last year´s appropriation required that DOE produce a report on what they intended to actually do. Although months late, the report at least had a more or less specific proposal that outside analysts could critique. The plan was to take waste from light water reactors (that is, the normal nuclear reactors producing electricity around the country today), separate it into three parts: the comparatively innocuous uranium, the fission products, and the plutonium and other heaviest elements, or transuranics. The uranium would be sent to a low-level waste repository (although there is some argument about that), the fission products would go to a long-term geological repository, presumably Yucca Mountain, but that too is not absolutely certain, and the plutonium and other transuranics would be completely burned up as nuclear fuel in a “close-cycle’ reaction. Since the transuranics will not work well as fuel in current light-water reactors, for every three light water reactors, we would have to build one fast-neutron reactor to burn the waste. [See, for example, the three bullet points at the top of p. 4 or the graphic on p. 11 of the report linked above.] Fast-neutron reactors have been built in the past but never successfully commercialized.

As I have written elsewhere, this idea makes good sense, in theory. The reason this is a bad idea is not that it violates the laws of physics but because the engineering, economics, and timing don´t work. It might be a good idea 70-100 years from now, but not now.

Even with those limitations, the proposal in the DOE report made more sense than the alternative, partial recycling as practiced by the French. One of the primary advocates of closed-cycle reprocessing is Phillip Finck of Argonne National Laboratory and, when he argues for closed-cycle reprocessing, he points out that it should not be confused with what the French are doing today, a process that has limited advantages and great costs. Summaries from the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, state: “The second option, termed "limited recycling" by Dr. Finck, is currently in use in France, Japan, and the United Kingdom. The process, called PUREX, separates the plutonium and uranium from the waste stream where they are re-used as fuel in a commercial nuclear reactor. However, since the spent plutonium/uranium fuel is not recycled again and the other fission products are not recycled at all, this limited recycling process only results in a 10% reduction in the total volume of produced waste. In addition, there are concerns that an increased supply of concentrated plutonium creates a risk of nuclear proliferation.’ In a briefing presented on the Hill, Frank von Hippel of Princeton, a strong opponent of closed-cycle reprocessing, even included a slide called “Where Finck and I agree,’ in which he cites Finck´s comments that the French recycle-once approach has insufficient benefits.

Well, with that as background, yesterday DOE held a telephone press conference on Thursday to announce what seems to be a proposal to essentially reproduce the French approach, plus a fast burner reactor program that would allow a later move to a closed cycle. An additional twist is that at the press conference Assistant Secretary Spurgeon cited a study by The Boston Consulting Group, which was working for the French plutonium reprocessing firm Areva, that argues that reprocessing and recycling through light-water reactors was economically sound. Not surprisingly, this analysis is far more optimistic than the National Academy of Science´s study or the Harvard study. But then the Boston report contains this disclaimer:

“This report was prepared by The Boston Consulting Group at the request of AREVA. BCG reviewed publicly available information and proprietary data provided by AREVA, but did not undertake any independent verification of the facts contained in those source materials. Changes in these facts or underlying assumptions could change the results reported in this study. Any other party using this report for any purpose, or relying on this report in any way, does so at their own risk. No representation or warranty, express or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy or completeness of the information presented herein or its suitability for any particular purpose.’

'nuff said.

--Posted by Ivan Oelrich

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Deseret News
August 11, 2006

No temporary waste sites

Deseret Morning News editorial

A coalition of Northeastern governors has sent a letter to the Senate objecting to a plan that would send nuclear waste to several regional repositories until a permanent site is opened. They were, of course, acting in their own self-interests. No one wants a nuclear repository within his or her borders, especially when the prospects for a permanent site seem iffy, at best.

And yet the governors' concerns are correct from a public-policy standpoint, as well. Utah's politicians have been making this argument for years. In the politically volatile world of nuclear waste, temporary easily could become permanent. And, in the meantime, spent nuclear fuel rods might be in transit all across the county.

If the Goshute reservation site in Utah were the only temporary repository in operation, the waste would be constantly in transit from points east. If the pending plan were to go into effect, 31 states would house temporary repositories, which means spent fuel rods would be in constant transit in all parts of the continent.

The industry would say this is of little concern. The rods are stored within casks that are virtually impenetrable. But that, of course, argues for their continued storage where they are.

The first permanent storage site, long planned for yucca Mountain in Nevada, is far behind schedule and faces many more legal and political challenges. As it now stands, the projected opening date is in 2017, which is 19 years late. A federal appeals court moved that process along an inch or two this week by rejecting some of Nevada's legal claims against the dump, but many more challenges remain. In the meantime, the government may face lawsuits because it didn't live up to its contract to begin accepting waste in 1998.

Of course, politicians nationwide have competing motives for the way they act. The Northeastern governors don't want dumps in their own states, but they also worry that a temporary storage scheme would divert attention from building yucca, which they do want. Here in Utah, we have similar worries about a temporary site that could become permanent, but yucca is worrisome, as well.

Barring any significant breakthroughs that would make nuclear recycling more efficient than it currently is, the best alternative remains to keep the waste where it is.

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Salt Lake Tribune
August 11, 2006

Chairman defends leaving n-waste in states where it's produced

By Robert Gehrke
The Salt Lake Tribune

But Domenici argued that Yucca Mountain, which is 19 years behind schedule, won't open until 2017 and it will take another 23 years to move existing waste to the site. There needs to be, he wrote in a letter to the governors, a practical interim solution.

"I am interested in a solution that will keep the Yucca Mountain project moving, but also acknowledges the need to safely deal with spent fuel until the project is completed," he wrote.

Interim storage would also give the Energy Department time to develop technology to recycle nuclear waste, reducing the amount of waste that will have to be buried at Yucca Mountain, Domenici wrote.

Domenici's proposal, backed by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, is included in an energy spending bill pending in the Senate. It would create temporary storage sites, but would require that the waste stay in states that generate nuclear power. Regional sites are also on option under the plan.

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Pacific Coast Business Times
August 11, 2006

PG&E to shut centers

Bill Lascher
Staff Writer

Pacific Gas & Electric Co. has asked the California Public Utilities Commission to allow it to close all of its customer service centers in favor of neighborhood bill payment centers and remote customer service via the telephone and Internet.

The realignment is one of the proposals the San Francisco-based utility is seeking commission approval for in its 2007 General Rate Case. PG&E just finished its testimony on the rate case, and the commission is now hearing testimony from other interested parties. It is expected to rule in December.

If approved, the GRC, as it is known, also calls for $2 billion in annual spending by PG&E over the next five years to improve its infrastructure throughout California. The spending will allow the utility to improve equipment that is, on average, 40 to 50 years old. Overall, PG&E is seeking base revenue increases that would raise electricity rates by 3.9 percent in 2007.

PG&E supplies electricity to North Santa Barbara County and all of San Luis Obispo County, a region defined by the company as the Los Padres division.

“We´re making a significant investment,’ spokeswoman Sharon Gavin said.

One of the biggest investments PG&E will put into the Los Padres area will be for upgrading infrastructure at the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant near San Luis Obispo. That plant generates nearly 2,200 megawatts of electricity, which is roughly one third of the utility´s entire generating capacity. According to Gavin, the plant´s storage generators must be replaced and a dry-cast storage facility must be built to keep the plant running. With opposition tying up plans to build a spent-fuel storage facility at Nevada´s Yucca Mountain, Diablo Canyon must keep its radioactive waste on-site and it is expected to reach capacity by 2010 or 2011. A dry-cast storage facility allows it to increase capacity.

The company has also proposed in its rate case to close its customer service centers, including one in San Luis Obispo County. In exchange, PG&E wants to open 15 neighborhood payment centers throughout the Los Padres division. These centers would be counters in grocery stores staffed by individuals who are not PG&E employees. Gavin said the company views the centers as a way to give customers convenience, allowing them to pay their bills at a local site while they buy groceries.

Gavin said the company is asking for the change because only 9 percent of customer payments and 6 percent of non-payment transactions occur at the company-operated customer service centers.

“Most people are actually contacting us through the 1-800 number or the Web site,’ Gavin said.

PG&E plans to use part of its $2 billion infrastructure budget to build new transmission switching stations. In Los Padres, the company spends about $5 million each year to trim trees that could interfere with power lines and another $5 million to patrol, inspect, and maintain both overground and underground electric lines.

Despite the infrastructure´s age, PG&E has not experienced the same widespread outages that have been seen in Southern California Edison´s territory throughout Ventura and Santa Barbara Counties. The system does not use the same paper insulated lead piping used by Edison, and it has long had automatic reclosures in place that allow it to shut down circuits affected by outages immediately, thus limiting the spread of power failures.

“As far as aging infrastructure goes our major problems is probably our poles,’ Gavin said.

Part of the work done to inspect the utility´s system will be done to repair and replacing aging utility poles. Because of the somewhat rural nature of the Los Padres division, it is not cost effective for the company to bury power lines.

Other measures the company has taken to ensure transmission reliability is an outage review team that meets every two weeks to respond to outages, and automated switching stations that help the company respond to failures in a territory where some circuits are difficult to reach because of the terrain.

“We´re able to identify a problem quickly, which helps us restore a problem,’ Gavin said. “It also minimizes the scope of an outage because we can narrow it down to as small an area as possible by rerouting power.’

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Indianapolis Star
August 11, 2006

Ken Bode

Leaving Las Vegas? Dems don't need Nevada

For reasons not entirely comprehensible, the Democrats have decided to add a little sex and glitter to the 2008 presidential contest. To reduce the longstanding lock held by Iowa and New Hampshire on the opening events of the campaign season, the Democrats' rules committee voted to wedge the Nevada caucuses in between those states.

This will be some fun! Instead of following candidates around the cornfields and county fairs of Iowa in the summer and the snowy hills and villages of New Hampshire in the winter, reporters will be required to measure the future leaders of what we once called The Free World against the backdrops offered by the Las Vegas Strip. The TV brethren will add to their stock shots the casino lights, spinning roulette wheels, miles of slot machines and, of course, the marvelous bodies who cavort about the stages of the casinos and strip joints. What else is there in Nevada? Well, there are legalized brothels and nuclear waste; these, too, for reporters and candidates to explore.

But first, let's examine the motives behind this move. For years the press and public have complained that Iowa and New Hampshire have vastly too much influence on presidential nominations in both parties. Beginning even now, the candidates and reporters are spending every spare weekend in those states; when the actual voting begins, the race often is over once Iowa and New Hampshire have had their say. In an effort to grab part of the action, other states have rushed to move up their primaries and caucuses to the point that the system is now dangerously "frontloaded." A presidential nominating process that ran from February through early June is now over in three or four weeks, far less time than the voters need to sort through the 10 or so candidates in each party.

Why Nevada? For the same reason other states move up: to grab some attention and influence in the process. Sen. Harry Reid is arguably the most powerful Democrat in Washington. Reid wants his state at the top of the schedule and he used his muscle to get it done. Reid was unimpressed by the reservations expressed by some rules committee members, namely that they ought to seek a state that is a little more economically diversified. Nevada is a single-industry state. It survives because of legalized gambling and the tourism, sex and entertainment surrounding it. Nevada's congressional delegation exists almost entirely to protect the legislative interests of the "gaming industry."

Unquestionably, the early states have an important edge on policy questions. Since Ronald Reagan, and probably before, New Hampshire Republicans have demanded that presidential candidates "take the pledge," meaning sign a promise not to raise taxes under any circumstances. In Iowa, candidates of both parties have had to promise to support farm subsidies for the development of ethanol, fuel from corn. Over time, the ethanol special interest has resulted in a thriving industry, though it took $70-a-barrel oil for it to happen.

What local issues might be addressed in Nevada? Well, the candidates might talk about the system of legal brothels by county option, a system that has worked there for 50 years. Or, they might be asked about the efforts of sex workers in Las Vegas to form a union. Or, do they support the idea of putting EDT machines for cash withdrawals for welfare and food stamps in grocery and liquor stores, as the gaming industry has proposed? It is said that the Democratic Party has a moral values problem. Adding images of flying dice and spinning slot machines with the surrounding sex industry isn't likely to help.

There is also the question of Yucca Mountain, which the Energy Department has designated as the dump site for America's nuclear waste. Nevada has fought and lost in Congress and the courts to block the thousands of tons of spent fuel and high-level defense waste heading its way by train for a final resting place in the moonscape of rural Nevada. Every candidate will have to have a position on Yucca Mountain, and to please the Nevada voters it will have to be against the waste dump.

Reid's hare-brained idea will embarrass the entire Democratic Party. The best solution in the short run is for the presidential candidates to ignore the Nevada caucuses and stick to the old schedule.

--Bode, a former senior political analyst for CNN, is the Pulliam professor of journalism at DePauw University. Contact him at kenbode@depauw.edu.

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Boston Globe
August 11, 2006

Romney outlines energy plan mixing conservation, alternate supply

By Glen Johnson
AP Political Writer

BOSTON --Trying to stave off power shortages and high electricity costs, Gov. Mitt Romney on Friday unveiled a plan to both reduce demand and increase supply in Massachusetts.

Within the next month, Romney will require more efficient energy use in state buildings, increased use of biofuels in the state automobile fleet and the creation of a lottery in which prizes will be awarded to consumers who buy energy-efficient equipment.

Romney opposes an onshore facility proposed for Weaver's Cove in Fall River, but he has voiced support for a plan to create an offshore terminal on Outer Brewster Island at the edge of Boston Harbor.

More broadly, through a mix of executive orders and legislation he will request from the House and Senate, the governor will seek to establish a "negawatts" program in which utility companies pay customers who reduce their energy use, support the establishment of "selective" wind power projects and work with businesses and universities to create deep water offshore wind farms.

The governor opposes the Cape Wind plant proposed for Nantucket Sound, which he says is a pristine, nationally-known tourist destination. But he supports similar projects in Princeton, Hull and other Massachusetts locations.

The governor said the plan is necessary to avoid rolling blackouts in the future such as those recently experienced in California and to ensure the state's electricity demand does not exceed its capacity, which is predicted to occur in 2013.

Romney said adopting the proposal could help the state avoid paying subsidies the federal government has threatened to charge to boost power company revenues and encourage them to build more plants in Massachusetts. The companies have been reluctant to build new plants because the state's relatively low electricity prices mean insufficient returns. The subsidies have been projected at $10 billion over the next 10 years, but reducing demand would eliminate the need for new plants, Romney said.

"The alternative is powerplants, with additional cost, with additional pollution, with a long permitting process and the potential of higher and higher electric rates in Massachusetts," Romney said at a Statehouse news conference.

A spokesman for MASSPIRG, a public advocacy group that focuses on state power issues, did not immediately return calls or an e-mail seeking comment on the plan.

Sue Reid, a staff attorney at the Conservation Law Foundation, called for swift implementation of Romney's proposal.

"To effectively confront the climate-change crisis and meet our energy needs, we need to do everything the governor is proposing on efficiency, conservation, clean energy and more," she said.

The Romney plan does not call for the construction of any new, conventional power plants, but the governor said "the nation is going to have to explore nuclear power sources again."

"I'm hopeful that as we invest in this energy sector, that here in Massachusetts we'll find ways to dispose of or to reuse the waste that comes from nuclear power plants," the governor said.

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SF.Indymedia
August 11, 2006

American Bar Association rebukes president

by Kenneth J. Theisen

President Bush has issued more than 800 signing statements challenging laws that he has signed. This is more than all other presidents combined. The American Bar Association has rebuked the president on this vast misuse of presidential powers.

On January 24, 2006, the American Bar Association (ABA) issued a press release stating that, “Presidential signing statements that assert President Bush´s authority to disregard or decline to enforce laws adopted by Congress undermine the rule of law and our constitutional system of separation of powers…’ The press release was publicizing a report by a blue-ribbon ABA task force which was created in June 2006 to examine the “changing role of presidential signing statements’ under the Bush administration. On August 8, 2006, the ABA´s House of Delegates overwhelmingly approved the report by voting to call on President Bush and future presidents not to issue signing statements that claim the power to bypass laws, and it called on Congress to pass legislation to outlaw the practice.

The ABA declared that it “opposes, as contrary to the rule of law and our constitutional system of separation of powers, the misuse of presidential signing statements by claiming the authority…to disregard or decline to enforce all or part of a law the president has signed, or to interpret such a law in a manner inconsistent with the clear intent of Congress.’ The ABA´s outgoing president, Michael Greco, stated, “The constitution says the president has two choices: either sign the bill or veto it. And if you sign it, you can´t have your hand behind your back with your fingers crossed.’

Despite the administration´s claim that the use of signing statements is “respectful’ of Congress, it is clear that the Bush regime has abused the use of signing statements in a grab for more power at the expense of the legislative and judicial bodies. Signing statements have traditionally been used by presidents to elaborate the view of the president on the particular law that was being signed. According to the task force report, “[F]rom the inception of the Republic until 2000, Presidents produced fewer than 600 signing statements taking issue with the bills they signed. According to the most recent update, in his one-and-a-half terms so far, President George Walker Bush…has produced more than 800.’ The report found that Bush´s signing statements are “ritualistic, mechanical and generally carry no citation of authority or detailed explanation.’

As one example it cited a law requiring the Attorney General to submit to Congress a report any time that official or any officer of the Department of Justice established or pursued a policy of refraining from enforcing a federal statute. The president in his signing statement insisted he had the authority to withhold such information whenever he deemed it necessary, thus defeating the very purpose of the law.

The task force also noted that Bush´s signing statements where he refused to carry out laws included, “Congressional requirements to report back to Congress on the use of the Patriot Act authority to secretly search homes and seize private papers, [and] the McCain amendment forbidding any U.S. officials to use torture or cruel and inhumane treatment on prisoners.’

Other examples of signing statements where Bush has indicated his refusal to comply with the law cited in the report include: “bills banning the use of U.S. troops in combat against rebels in Columbia; bills requiring reports to Congress when money from regular appropriations is diverted to secret operations; two bills forbidding the use of military intelligence of materials ‘not lawfully collected´ in violation of the Fourth Amendment; a post-Abu Ghraib bill mandating new regulations for military prisons in which military lawyers were permitted to advise commanders on the legality of certain kinds of treatment even if the Department of Justice lawyers did not agree; bills requiring the retraining of prison guards in humane treatment under the Geneva Conventions, requiring background checks for civilian contractors in Iraq and banning contractors from performing security, law enforcement, intelligence and criminal justice functions.’

He also stated his refusal to carry out the law that requires “that government scientists transmit their findings to Congress uncensored, along with a guarantee that whistleblower employees at the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission will not be punished for providing information to Congress about safety issues in the planned nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain…’ One may ask what the administration is trying to hide from Congress. But then secrecy within the Bush administration seems to be regular practice in order to hide it misdeeds. “The less the public knows the better’ seems to be the slogan among Bush officials.

Immediate past ABA President Michael S. Greco in the press release regarding the report stated, “This report raises serious concerns crucial to the survival of our democracy. If left unchecked, the president´s practice does grave harm to the separation of powers doctrine, and the system of checks and balances, that have sustained our democracy for more than two centuries. Immediate action is required to address this threat to the Constitution and to the rule of law in our country.’

It is significant that the ABA which represents more than 400,000 lawyers in the U.S. has taken this step to rebuke the Bush regime´s regular practice of using signing statements to undermine the law. The ABA is far from a liberal organization. Yet the highest body of the ABA has recognized that the Bush administration has pushed the limits in its regular challenge to the separation of powers doctrine.

It is ironic though when its solution to the problem is to have Congress pass laws to prevent such abuse. If Congress actually summons the courage to pass such a law, I can see Bush attaching a signing statement to it that says he will not enforce this law. As can readily be seen by some of his past signing statements, he is not above doing so.

A brief look at the Bush regime´s justification for its use of signing statements, as well as a look at some of the signing statements that have been issued, is in order to see just how far Bush has tried to put himself above the law.

In June of this year, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Michelle Boardman testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on signing statements. She argued, “Respect for the legislative branch is not shown through veto. Respect for the legislative branch, when we have a well-crafted bill, the majority of which is constitutional, is shown when the president chooses to construe a particular statement in keeping with the Constitution, as opposed to defeating an entire bill that would serve the nation.’ Of course Bush has shown such “respect’ for Congress some 800 times.

Boardman further claimed that the president can bypass any law if it conflicts with the Constitution, even when “the Supreme Court has yet to rule on an issue, but the president has determined that a statutory law violates the Constitution.’ In responding to this remarkable interpretation of presidential powers, Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold accurately stated that the Bush administration has “assigned itself the sole responsibility for deciding which laws it will comply with, and in the process has taken upon itself the powers of all three branches of government.’

It is beyond frightening to learn that President Bush, who has bragged about not even reading the newspapers, feels he has the competency to determine when laws are constitutional and further will decide which laws to ignore and which to enforce. I doubt that he has ever read a full court opinion on any constitutional case. But then a man who claims to get directions from god must have extraordinary powers beyond the comprehension of the rest of us mere mortals.

An overview of some of the signing statements and their impact is even more frightening. Earlier in the year, Congress voted to outlaw torture in interrogations by U.S. agents. The Bush regime fought the passage of the law arguing that the president needed flexibility to waive the ban to prosecute the war on terrorism. Congress passed the law without such a waiver clause. When Bush signed the law, he issued a signing statement that claimed he had the power as commander-in-chief to waive the ban when necessary to protect national security. In effect he made the law unenforceable defeating the will of Congress. He has also attached signing statements challenging other bills related to torture. Apparently our president wants to use torture whenever he deems it necessary. And given the history and frequency of the use of torture under the regime at prisons operated by the U.S. around the world, it is apparent why the Bush regime would want to ignore these laws. (As I write this, it has come to light that the Bush administration has drafted amendments to the War Crimes Act that would retroactively protect policy makers from criminal charges for authorizing humiliating and degrading treatment of detainees.)

Bush also has attached signing statements to bills requiring reports to Congress when money from regular appropriations is diverted to secret operations. Bush considers such reports as undermining his commander-in-chief role and thus refuses to comply by making the required reports. The Constitution invested the “power of the purse’ in Congress. But Bush has apparently re-interpreted this specific delegation in the Constitution granting Congress the power to determine how taxpayer money is spent with extremely negative consequences.

For instance Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward disclosed that in July of 2002 Bush diverted $700 million into Iraq invasion planning from appropriations that had nothing to do with Iraq without informing Congress that it was being used to plan an attack on Iraq. In fact the diversion took place at a time when the Bush regime was falsely claiming that it was seeking “diplomatic solutions to the problem of Iraq.’ How much other money has been diverted and for what purposes is impossible to tell as it is clear Bush has no intention of making the required reports to Congress. Has money been diverted into Iran invasion planning? Maybe some has been used to finance the emergency shipments of weapons to Israel for the invasion of Lebanon. By ignoring this law, Bush can shuffle money around without being subject to any oversight.

It is clear from reviewing Bush´s extensive use of signing statements that the regime has an expansive view of presidential power. Any laws that place restrictions or requirements on the president´s role as commander-in-chief will surely have a signing statement attached to them. And unfortunately Bush sees his commander-in-chief role as having a lot of power given that he claims we are in a “war against terrorism.’ This view allows a national security state which not only justifies wars throughout the world, but virtually unlimited spying and power here at home. Any actions necessary to “prosecute’ the war can be justified under this view.

Vice-president Dick Cheney articulated the view of the administration in a December 2005 press conference which he staged to defend the regime´s warrantless wiretapping. He said, "Watergate and a lot of the things around Watergate and Vietnam during the 1970s, served, I think, to erode the authority I think the president needs to be effective, especially in the national security area. ... the president of the United States needs to have his constitutional powers unimpaired, if you will, in terms of the conduct of national security policy. He then urged the reporters to read a 1987 minority report from the congressional Iran-Contra Committee when he said, “If you want a reference to an obscure text, go look at the minority views that were filed with the Iran-Contra Committee…I think [they] are very good in laying out a robust view of the president´s prerogatives with respect to the conduct of especially foreign policy and national security matters.’

Back then, Cheney was the ranking Republican on the joint committee looking into the Iran-Contra scandal. He was also one of the chief architects of the minority report issued by the committee. Instead of blaming those in the Reagan administration who broke the law, the report put the blame on Congress for passing laws that the administration felt obliged to flout in the interest of national security. The report argued that such laws were an unconstitutional intrusion of the president´s war powers. To quote the report, “Judgments about the Iran-Contra affair ultimately rest upon one´s views about the proper roles of Congress and the president in foreign policy…The fundamental law of the land is the Constitution. Unconstitutional statutes violate the rule of law every bit as much as do willful violations of constitutional statutes.’ In the view of the Bush regime, the president is clearly vested with the power to decide which laws are constitutional and which infringe on his powers. Of course this virtually negates the role of Congress and the Supreme Court and creates an imperial presidency.

What really is at stake? The ABA has recognized that Bush´s abuse of signing statements “undermine the law’ and as the past president of the ABA states, threatens “our democracy.’ The position of the ABA is a positive development. But new laws as urged by the ABA will not prevent the horrors planned by the Bush regime. The regime has already shown its contempt for so many laws by openly violating them.

The only way to prevent an imperial presidency and country in which Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, Rice, Hadley, and a few others make all the decisions for the rest of the world is to remove the Bush regime from power as soon as possible. The U.S. is now waging wars or proxie wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Palestine. The regime is planning war against Iran. Here at home the survivors of Katrina are still suffering. Countless other crimes of the regime could also be listed if space allowed. The abuse of signing statements is just part of the regime´s plans to operate a dictatorship which acts in the interest of a few at the expense of the vast majority. It is just one more reason why the world can´t wait one more day to drive the Bush regime from power now!

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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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