Yucca Mountain News Clips
Thursday, November 2, 2006
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
November 02, 2006
YUCCA MOUNTAIN: Questions abound on nuclear waste
Energy officials discuss transportation plans
By Keith Rogers
Review-Journal
AMARGOSA VALLEY -- There were more questions than answers for some of the 44 people who came to this rural community Wednesday night to hear the Department of Energy's new plans for hauling the nation's nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain.
Some expected more details about how the 77,000 tons of used nuclear fuel and highly radioactive waste will be packed in canisters and shipped by trains and trucks to the planned repository site in the volcanic-rock ridge.
Others wanted to know if hamlets along the rail lines will be safe.
Yet others wanted to know how much the transportation scheme will cost and who will pay for the packing and transfer of nuclear materials to government haulers at reactor sites.
"It's a lack of systems engineering that sums this up," said Bob Halstead, Nevada's nuclear waste transportation consultant. "I was expecting them to do a better job."
Halstead and full-time state consultant Steve Frishman said plans the Energy Department presented for a rail corridor reaching Yucca Mountain from the north and for a multi-purpose canister to transport, age and dispose of the waste were simply too vague, and the comment period to review and offer informed insights on the project is too short.
They referred to a statement written Tuesday by the State Nuclear Projects Agency that among other things alleges California and Utah have been left "totally in the dark by DOE."
"Despite the fact that national changes in rail routing as a result of using a Mina rail spur (from the north) would mean exponentially more shipments in California and would request the use of an entirely different main line railroad segment in Utah, DOE has refused to schedule public meetings in those states or even formally seek their input," reads the statement from the Nevada Nuclear Projects Agency.
Agency chief Bob Loux is scheduled to join Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., at a news conference before today's scoping meeting in Las Vegas to discuss what they say is a history of disregarding public concerns and scientific evidence in the government's effort to license and build a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Allen Benson, an Energy Department spokesman for the Yucca Mountain Project, rejected any notion that the scoping meetings are flawed.
"We believe the format for the scoping meetings serves the public," Benson said. "We've gotten a lot of feedback."
The department will consider the comments gathered at the meetings, as well as written comments that are submitted, in an attempt to address issues and draft more detailed plans that will be held to public scrutiny in formal, environmental impact hearings next year, Benson said.
At least a dozen people gave statements to court reporters at Wednesday night's meeting at the Longstreet Inn. It was the first scoping meeting in Nevada on the new rail alignment plan and the transportation, aging and disposal canisters.
Halstead asserted that the plans overlook the possibility that much of the 77,000 tons of nuclear waste might be reprocessed to reduce its volume and potential lethal effects.
"There's all this talk about reprocessing," he said. "If you think reprocessing is a good idea, it raises concerns about the (transportation, aging and disposal) canister. It's going to be more difficult and costly to unload when you get it to the reprocessing plant," he said.
Frishman said he wonders if the Energy Department will address the possibility of an earthquake causing cranes to drop canisters of deadly waste when they're being handled at above-ground facilities near the mountain.
"The reality is Murphy's Law is always at work," he said.
Nancy Boland, an Esmeralda County commissioner who traveled 21/2 hours from Silver Peak to attend Wednesday's meeting, said the new rail alignment plan would bring nuclear waste "awfully close to town."
"I'm concerned about the noise and the visual effects. ... I want to make sure our people are safe," she said.
On a preliminary list of issues the Energy Department intends to address are the potential radiological impact on workers and the public from sabotage of transportation and repository operations.
Jane Summerson, the department's compliance officer and Environmental Impact Statement document manager for the project, acknowledged that sabotage would apply to Nevada and all states along transportation routes but there are currently no plans to hold formal hearings in Chicago or Denver for example. Instead, comments from those areas will probably be fielded via the Internet, she said.
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Pahrump Valley Times
November 02, 2006
Commission hopefuls debate Focus Group plan
By Mark Waite
PVT
The Sept. 19 approval of the Focus Property Group development agreement is a done deal, but it has surfaced as the major issue in the Nov. 7 Nye County Commission race.
District 5 candidate Pete Liakopoulos said he favored the Focus Group development pact.
He made the statement in response to a question during a recent candidates forum sponsored by the Pahrump Valley Rotary Club at the Saddle West Hotel and Casino.
"I came out for Focus Group before," Liakapoulos, said. "Focus Group has brought in some of the things I'm looking to get done in my term of office."
Liakopuolos said the project will bring in $56 million worth of infrastructure, as specified in the development agreement, and $36 million worth of sales tax revenue, arrived at by computing the cost of a $100,000 home against the sales tax rate.
Liakopoulos said he doesn't expect many senior citizens to take advantage of his plan to defer property taxes until they transfer the title, which would be aimed at people who plan to live in their homes until they die.
"Nobody in Nevada has done it because we have to go through the legislative session," he said.
Liakopoulos' opponent, non-partisan candidate Dan Schinhofen, said the number one issue he heard while going door-to-door was about the Focus Group project.
"I agreed with our legal advice. This was not the time to vote. There's too much there," Schinhofen told the crowd at the VFW post Saturday night about the development agreement. "My Republican opponent is four-square behind them ... All this money they're going to give us, there's very little we can (do to) hold their feet to the fire."
Schinhofen said getting government officials to cooperate would bring in commercial development to Pahrump. Another solution, he said, would be hiring a good planning director; county commissioners say they don't know the name of the person being offered the planning director position.
"We have not been as user friendly as we could've been," Schinhofen said. "Part of our problem in the past was everybody had their own little plans and then worked against each other."
Democratic District 5 candidate Jan Bearss, who said her only previously elected offices were union positions, said she wouldn't be subject to outside influences in making her votes. Bearss said she decided to run in 2004 and drafted her platform, "Citizens First," six months ago.
She talked about balancing the budget by creating a comprehensive, long-term plan. Wind and solar power would be ideal industries to locate in Pahrump, Bearss said, adding that she'd work closely with the Economic Development Authority of Esmeralda and Nye County (EDEN).
"If I were coming out here and I were looking for a job, I would probably look somewhere else," Bearss said.
District 4 Democratic candidate Charlie Anzalone told voters, "The first thing I'd do is hand out a business plan to all commissioners."
The business plan, he said, would include a plan for sewer systems and electrical transmission lines.
Anzalone also suggested that each county commissioner should be elected by voters from throughout Nye County instead of just within each one's district.
"I want to see all commissioners be at-large positions," Anzalone told the VFW post audience Saturday night. "Right now I can win the district and not be accountable to the entire county."
Anzalone said Nye County schools need more law enforcement protection. He added that the schools should be "community schools" open to the public.
"The Amish people, of all people, have to start worrying about protecting themselves," he said, referring to a recent shooting incident at a school in Pennsylvania.
District 4 Republican candidate Andrew "Butch" Borasky said he served on the Pahrump Regional Planning Commission for two years and learned about balancing a budget in running his excavating business.
Borasky referred to an Urban Land Institute conference in Las Vegas recently, which concluded Pahrump planners were unprepared for growth.
"One of the things I'd do if I'm elected is put a citizens review board in to see what's going to happen with growth," Borasky said. "We need to be allowed to determine our own destiny. Developers from Las Vegas should not be able to come out here and tell us what we're going to live in and what it's going to look like."
Borasky said he has proof the water table is dropping a foot per year or more in Pahrump Valley. He said commissioners should require that developers putting in more than 100 homes should guarantee there's going to be water available.
Borasky said Utilities Inc., the major water and sewer provider in Pahrump Valley, should be allowed to expand.
The question of incorporation also came up. Schinhofen said if the county government is working efficiently, Pahrump doesn't need to incorporate.
Borasky replied, "I would be in favor of incorporating Pahrump if it was presented in a fashion everyone would understand."
Anzalone said it would depend on how Pahrump might wish to incorporate. It would mean establishing a mayor and police force, he said.
"Right now the rule is you have to incorporate the valley that's over 250 square miles. That's ridiculous," Anzalone said.
All candidates seemed to agree that the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository project is a certainty. Nye County should attempt to ensure the project is managed safely with ample financial benefits to the county, they said.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
November 01, 2006
DOE adds Yucca meeting in Reno
Hearings, comment time fall short of requests
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- The Energy Department added a public meeting in Reno later this month to discuss new designs for a Yucca Mountain repository and a possible Northern Nevada railroad corridor for nuclear waste.
The department on Tuesday also extended the official public comment period on both matters until Dec. 12, a 15-day extension.
The DOE announcement fell short of what the state of Nevada and activist groups had requested as the government embarks on a round of environmental impact studies for the proposed changes.
Besides Reno, state officials had sought meetings in cities across Northern Nevada, and also in Sacramento, Calif., and Salt Lake City, areas could be affected by rail shipments of nuclear waste along the so-called "Mina corridor" that the DOE is preparing to study.
Under the Mina route proposal, the nuclear waste would travel south near or through the small towns of Winnemucca, Silver Springs, Hawthorne, Mina, Goldfield and Amargosa Valley and then northeast to the repository.
The state plans to register growing irritation over the department's schedule for the Yucca Mountain "scoping" meetings and their format, said Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects.
"Certainly this is not enough," Loux said. "DOE is making a deliberate attempt to reduce the affected public from any effective involvement in the process.
"There are thousands of people in the Interstate 80 corridor where the bulk of shipments would be coming through who don't know what is going on," Loux said.
The added hearing in Reno coupled with the extra time for Nevadans to comment at public meetings or on the www.ocrwm.doe.gov Web site "provides the public with sufficient opportunity to provide us comments," DOE spokesman Allen Benson said.
DOE was required only to hold a single public meeting, Benson said. "So clearly we are going beyond what was required," he said.
The additional meeting will be Nov. 27 at the University of Nevada, Reno. Nuclear waste could travel through the downtown of that city under a scenario DOE plans to examine, according to activists.
The Energy Department has scheduled a scoping meeting from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. today in Amargosa Valley at the Longstreet, state Route 373.
Another meeting is scheduled for the same time Thursday in Las Vegas at the Cashman Center, 850 Las Vegas Blvd. North.
Meetings also will be held next week in Caliente, Goldfield, Hawthorne and Fallon.
At the sessions, information about new repository designs and maps of the proposed Mina route will be presented on poster boards, with project officials on hand to answer questions. Members of the public will be able to register comments to official recorders at the sites.
But Loux said the format is not informative based on comments he heard from people who attended an initial meeting in Washington on Monday.
He said the DOE and contractor officials gave conflicting answers to questions about repository blueprints and the status of multipurpose canisters DOE plans to employ to ship and store the radioactive waste.
"All in all, this whole process is really a disaster," Loux said.
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Reno Gazette-Journal
November 01, 2006
STREET REPORT
An Energy Department spokesman called the meetings 'listening sessions,' to collect comments for environmental studies on waste-handling at Yucca Mountain and building a railroad to the site through Lyon, Mineral and Esmeralda counties.
'If someone believes there is not enough information, they should make that one of the comments,' said Allen Benson, Energy Department and Yucca Mountain project spokesman in Las Vegas. 'We believe we are providing adequate and sufficient information for people to give the kind of input we need to complete these environmental assessments.'
Meetings were set this week in Amargosa Valley and Las Vegas, followed by sessions later this month in Caliente, Goldfield, Hawthorne, Fallon. A Nov. 27 meeting has been added in Reno.
The environmental reports are due out next year, Benson said.
Kevin Kamps, spokesman for the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, a Washington, D.C.-based watchdog group, complained that information at the Washington meeting was 'scattered.'
'We can't talk to each other, we can't hear from each other about concerns,' Kamps told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. 'It think it is by design.'
The Energy Department announced earlier this month it was reconsidering building a rail line through western Nevada to Yucca site, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The north-south route dubbed the Mina Corridor had been studied in the 1990s but shelved after the Walker River Paiute Indians refused access to their reservation. The tribe reconsidered this year.
The Energy Department had said it favored plans to build a longer east-west rail line from Caliente, near the Utah border, across rural Nevada to the nuclear dump site. The cost of the so-called Caliente Corridor route has been estimated at $2 billion.
There currently is no rail line to the Yucca site, which Congress and the Bush administration picked in 2002 as the place to entomb 77,000 tons of radioactive waste now being stored at nuclear reactors in 39 states. The project has been stalled by funding shortfalls and questions about quality control during site selection.
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KLAS
November 01, 2006
Public Can Comment on Yucca Mountain
The federal Energy Department is adding another public meeting about revised plans for a radioactive waste dump in Nevada while state officials and anti-nuclear advocates complained that a first meeting wasn't informative.
Energy Department officials call the meetings "listening sessions."
They say they're designed to kick off environmental impact studies on waste-handling at Yucca Mountain -- and the possibility of building a railroad to the site through Lyon, Mineral and Esmeralda counties.
But the first session Monday in Washington, DC, drew complaints that there wasn't enough detail to comment.
One lawyer for Nevada says nobody could have a way of knowing whether they would be affected or not.
A meeting November 27th in Reno has been added to meetings later this week in Amargosa Valley and Las Vegas -- followed by sessions later this month in Caliente, Goldfield, Hawthorne and Fallon.
You can click here to get a public comment form if you can't make it to the meetings.
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KVBC
November 01, 2006
Nevada critics of Yucca Mountain complain about info sessions
State officials and anti-nuclear advocates are complaining about how the Energy Department's sharing revised plans for a proposed radioactive waste dump in Nevada. Energy Department organizers call a series of upcoming meetings "listening sessions."
They say they're designed to kick off environmental impact studies on waste-handling at Yucca Mountain and the possibility of building a railroad to the site through Lyon, Mineral and Esmeralda counties.
But the first session Monday in Washington, DC, drew complaints that there wasn't enough detail to comment. One lawyer for Nevada says nobody could have a way of knowing whether they would be affected or not.
Meetings later this week will be in Amargosa Valley and Las Vegas, followed by sessions later this month in Caliente, Goldfield, Hawthorne and Fallon.
Information from: Las Vegas Review-Journal, www.lvrj.com
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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Patriot Ledger
November 01, 2006
Appeal filed in Pilgrim relicensing: Reilly, advocacy group fight judges’ decision
By Julie Jette
The Patriot Ledger
PLYMOUTH - Attorney General Thomas Reilly and a citizens’ group that critiques the Pilgrim nuclear power plant have stepped up efforts to press for greater oversight of the plant’s nuclear waste storage.
Entergy Corp., the New Orleans-based company that owns Pilgrim, is seeking to extend the plant’s life from 2012, when its license to operate currently expires, to 2032.
Reilly’s office and Duxbury-based Pilgrim Watch are pressing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to require Entergy to examine the possible results of an accident in the plant’s spent-fuel pool as part of its application for a license extension.
Both Pilgrim Watch and Reilly’s office filed appeals yesterday of a decision by a panel of administrative judges who rejected their request to force Entergy to address their spent-fuel pool concerns in its relicensing application.
Waste storage is an issue for nuclear plants because all were built assuming that the federal government would build a permanent, centralized waste storage site. The planned building of a storage site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada has been delayed for years.
Pilgrim currently stores its spent fuel in a pool inside the building that holds its reactor. That pool will be full by 2012, the year in which the plant’s license expires, and Entergy will have to come up with another storage plan if the plant continues to operate. But the relicensing process doesn’t specifically consider waste-storage issues.
Pilgrim spokesman David Tarantino said regulators have repeatedly rejected attempts to bring spent-fuel concerns into the relicensing process. He said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has other opportunities for the public to raise concerns about waste storage.
‘‘It seems to me there are avenues available to them, so I don’t understand why they don’t take advantage of those other avenues,’’ Tarantino said of Reilly and Pilgrim Watch.
The relicensing process requires plant operators to examine nonmoving parts of plants that could be affected by aging, as well as the environmental impact of running the plants for an additional 20 years.
Molly Bartlett, a lawyer who is pressing Pilgrim Watch’s case on a voluntary basis, said the group believes the fact that the fuel is being stored in the pool for longer than intended - and at a higher density than expected - means Entergy should include discussion of the environmental impact of a potential fire in the pool as part of its environmental analysis.
‘‘We think that warrants a new look into the safety of these spent-fuel pools,’’ she said.
Reilly’s office is trying to attack the issue on two fronts - by appealing the rejection of its contention by the panel of judges, and by asking the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to change its rules for the relicensing process to require a look at spent-fuel storage.
‘‘Attorney General Reilly believes that federal environmental law requires the NRC to address concerns about reactor fuel storage risk,’’ said Reilly spokeswoman Beth Stone.
Reilly’s request to change the relicensing rules could take years, a spokeswoman for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission said.
‘‘It’s reviewed as expeditiously as possible, but it’s not a quick process,’’ said the spokeswoman, Diane Screnci.
Julie Jette may be reached at jjette@ledger.com .
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
October 31, 2006
Yucca Mountain session prompts dissatisfaction
Energy Department displays new plans
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- The Department of Energy on Monday began explaining proposed changes to the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site. But activists and representatives for Nevada grumbled that few details were available at a public meeting.
Energy Department organizers called the event a listening session as they start environmental impact studies of the proposals. After an hour, 46 people had signed in, mostly professionals representing interest groups, federal agencies, members of Congress and potential contractors.
The department is embarking on new designs for waste-handling facilities at Yucca Mountain and on a study of a possible railroad path that would carry radioactive waste through counties in western Nevada.
Information on new designs for waste canisters and blueprints of the above-ground parts of the tunnel repository were on poster boards, with presenters standing nearby to answer questions.
The same format is to be used in public meetings scheduled in Nevada over the next two weeks. More of them will focus on the proposed Mina railroad corridor across Northern Nevada and through Lyon, Mineral and Esmeralda counties.
Critics of the Yucca program said the agency's presentation was unhelpful.
"There was not enough detail to offer an intelligent comment," said Marty Malsch, an attorney for the state. "Nobody could have a way to know whether they would be affected or not."
The information "is all scattered," said Kevin Kamps, nuclear waste specialist at the Nuclear Information and Resource Service. "We can't talk to each other, we can't hear from each other about concerns. It think it is by design."
Michele Boyd, legislative director of the Public Citizen energy program, said how the Energy Department proposed to load nuclear waste at reactors using new multi-purpose canisters was unclear.
"The pictures were completely useless," Boyd said.
Others defended what some called the low-key format and said it was designed to encourage citizens to ask questions and offer suggestions out of the spotlight. Formal public hearings will be held after the draft studies are completed, they said.
"This lets the department talk one-on-one with the public and answer questions and learn better what the concerns are," said Jane Summerson, DOE document manager for one of the impact studies.
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PR Newswire
October 31, 2006
Nortel Government Solutions Selected by NRC to Operate, Maintain Digital Courtrooms
US$7.7 Million Agreement Includes Support for Hearings, Application Enhancements
WASHINGTON, Oct. 31 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ - Nortel Government Solutions(x), a U.S. company wholly owned by Nortel(x) (NYSE/TSX: NT), has been selected by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) to operate and maintain the NRC's digital courtroom systems in Rockville, Maryland and Las Vegas, Nevada.
Nortel Government Solutions will provide these services under an agreement estimated at US$7.7 million over four years. The agreement also includes support for NRC hearings, as well as application development and testing.
The systems were developed by Nortel Government Solutions and delivered to the NRC earlier this year. They provide electronic evidence presentation, digital audio and video transcripts, and electronic capture and display of evidence. This enables immediate electronic access to documents, and live video and audio feeds to ensure the widest possible public access to NRC proceedings.
The digital courtroom systems are designed to help the NRC's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board Panel simplify proceedings ranging from routine cases to more complicated hearings involving nuclear reactor licenses.
One such proceeding is the potential adjudication regarding a U.S. Department of Energy license application for a commercial nuclear reactor waste storage facility at Nevada's Yucca Mountain, located 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Expected to last three to four years as mandated by Congress, this could become one of the largest and most complex administrative hearings in U.S. history. The digital database available to these two courtrooms is capable of storing and providing electronic access to the millions of pages of evidence and thousands of hours of testimony that may accumulate.
"These showcase systems integrate everything into one multimedia system with real-time access to information for all participants," said Chuck Saffell, chief executive officer, Nortel Government Solutions. "Our operations and maintenance services will help the NRC to achieve and sustain the highest performance, efficiency, security and reliability from its electronic courtrooms."
Nortel Government Solutions is the prime contractor for operation and maintenance of the NRC digital courtrooms, with mediaEdge, Levare, and ExhibitOne providing hardware, software and integration services. mediaEdge, a division of Exceptional Software Strategies, focuses on the rapidly evolving Internet multimedia market. Levare is a software solutions provider and maker of court calendaring and scheduling software. ExhibitOne is the nation's leading provider of audiovisual technologies, serving clients around the country in federal, state and enterprise markets.
About Nortel Government Solutions
Nortel Government Solutions is a network-centric integrator, providing the services expertise, mission-critical systems and secure communications that empower government to ensure the security, livelihood, and well being of its citizens. Headquartered in Fairfax, Va., Nortel Government Solutions offers a one-stop shop for solutions designed to improve workforce productivity, reduce operating costs, and streamline inter-agency communications. Nortel Government Solutions is a U.S. company wholly-owned by Nortel(x) (NYSE/TSX: NT). Please visit http://www.nortelgov.com for more information.
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Nortel is a recognized leader in delivering communications capabilities that enhance the human experience, ignite and power global commerce, and secure and protect the world's most critical information. Our next-generation technologies, for both service providers and enterprises, span access and core networks, support multimedia and business-critical applications, and help eliminate today's barriers to efficiency, speed and performance by simplifying networks and connecting people with information. Nortel does business in more than 150 countries. For more information, visit Nortel on the Web at http://www.nortel.com. For the latest Nortel news, visit http://www.nortel.com/news.
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Guardian
October 30, 2006
Carter Helps Son in Longshot Senate Bid
By Kathleen Hennessey
Associated Press Writer
LAS VEGAS (AP) - Jimmy Carter stepped out of a restaurant on a recent afternoon to find a dozen or so people waiting to greet him. The 82-year-old former president flashed his famous grin and smoothly worked the crowd.
Following in his footsteps, a man with the same grin struggled for the same reception. He reached at the hand of a distracted potential voter.
``I'm Jack Carter. I'm the one who's running,'' he said.
Such is the blessing and the curse of the Jack Carter for Senate campaign.
The eldest son of the 39th president is in the final push of an underdog campaign for the Senate in Nevada. Carter, a millionaire investment consultant, says outrage moved him to make his first bid for public office and run against a well-funded incumbent Republican, Sen. John Ensign.
Carter's top campaign targets have been the Bush administration's policies on war and security. His pitch to voters has been a promise of change and an independent voice. His greatest political asset is a famous father who sometimes steals the spotlight.
``I've got a very good name.'' Carter, 59, said while lunching with his father. ``I'll admit it. I don't have any problem with that.''
Experts agree the perks of presidential lineage are undeniable. Name recognition and access to a national network of contributors set Carter's campaign apart. No Democrat challenged Carter in the primary - even though he'd never run for office and had lived in the state less than four years.
``Anybody who was president of the United States by definition has coattails,'' said Dan Hart, a Las Vegas Democratic operative. ``Jack Carter is getting more attention than anybody else would have.''
In Nevada, riding Jimmy Carter's coattails wouldn't necessarily take you far. In Carter's presidential races, he lost the state by 5 percentage points in 1976 and 36 percentage points in 1980.
Nevadans twice voted for another former first son, President George W. Bush. Still, only 39 percent now approve of the president's job performance, according to a September newspaper poll. The same poll found Jack Carter trailing Ensign by about 23 percentage points, but more recent surveys have found Carter behind by about 10 percentage points.
Carter has leaned heavily on his father, who draws media coverage like a magnet, to make up for a campaign fund that's dwarfed by his opponent's. Ensign has outraised Carter by more than $4 million, at last reporting.
Jimmy Carter and his wife, Rosalynn, attended the campaign launch, and have been regular visitors since. When Jack Carter was hospitalized with colitis, his dad handled campaign events in his stead. Commercials for the low-income housing project supported by the former president, Habitat for Humanity, run during local political talk shows.
Hart says there are few negatives associated with Jimmy Carter. But others note potential pitfalls.
``There are limits on the value of campaigning with the famous father,'' said Andrew Polsky, a political science professor at Hunter College in New York who has studied political families. ``The next generation has to step out of the shadows at some point and be his own man or her own woman. They don't want to be overshadowed by the better known, more famous parent.''
Jack said he never sought his father's advice before getting into the race. Since then, he said, he hasn't sought much counsel from the local political establishment.
``I never did see Jack as a future political candidate,'' his father said. ``I don't think Jack is naturally fascinated with politics as a subject. But neither am I, by the way.''
Jack Carter has tried to reach out to Nevada voters who the Carters say 2004 Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry ignored. He talks openly about his Baptist faith, and appeared last weekend with his father at a black church in Las Vegas.
Jack, who grew up in Plains, Ga., claims a shared heritage with rural Nevadans. ``I am one of them because I'm from a small town,'' he said. ``And when I do go out into those small towns out there those people are the same I grew up with.''
Ensign disagrees, and his ads zoom in on a picture of a carpet bag to underscore the point. Ensign, a veterinarian and the son of a casino executive, grew up in Nevada and served two terms in the House before being elected to the Senate in 2000.
In debates, he has noted Carter relies on substantial financial support from outside Nevada - 84 percent, by the senator's count.
``How can you say you want to be Nevada's voice in Washington when almost all of your supporters are from out of state?'' Ensign said.
At times, Carter has appeared out of his element on Nevada turf. On the stump, he has little to say about water issues and the fight against a proposed nuclear waste storage dump at Yucca Mountain, northwest of Las Vegas.
His preferred approach is to pound the president, and by association Ensign, on the war in Iraq. Ensign, like many Republicans, has begun drawing distinctions between himself and the administration.
Hart said Carter's chances of winning depend on whether the predicted Democratic surge materializes on Election Day. ``Carter would need to benefit from that,'' Hart said.
Anything is possible, the former president said, recalling his own days as a political unknown.
``Remember, Rosalynn would go out and tell people to 'Vote for Jimmy,' and they'd come back and say, 'Jimmy who?'''
^---On the Net:
Jack Carter: http://www.carterfornevada.com/
Sen. John Ensign: http://www.johnensign.org/
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Los Angeles Times
October 30, 2006
Nuclear industry on rebound
High fossil fuel prices and concerns over reliance on imported energy prompt countries to reconsider reactors as a power source.
By Rebecca Bream
Financial Times
Nuclear power has staged a remarkable revival over the last few years amid growing concerns about energy insecurity and global warming.
From being viewed as a technology whose time had passed, hit by high costs and safety concerns, nuclear power now is considered by many countries as something worthy of billions of dollars of investment.
India and China are planning to build more than 20 reactors each by 2020, and Russia also is hoping to build more nuclear power stations. In Western Europe, new reactors are being built in Finland and France, and the U.S. wants to have its first new nuclear plant built by the middle of the next decade. Several other countries, including Britain, are in the process of reversing their previous antinuclear stances and laying the foundations for new projects.
The high price of oil and gas has caused countries without large reserves of hydrocarbons to search for alternatives. The fact that many of these countries also feel uncomfortable about relying on fuel imports from parts of the world that are seen as politically risky, whether the Middle East, Russia or Venezuela, has given the search for other energy sources increased urgency.
Concerns about energy security have contributed to a rise in the burning of coal to generate electricity but have also benefited the nuclear industry. Nuclear reactors need to import uranium, but the amount of fuel used is relatively small compared with gas- and coal-fired power plants, and they provide security of supply.
On the environmental front, nuclear power stations produce considerably less carbon dioxide than those burning fossil fuels, so supporters are also championing atomic energy as a way to combat global warming. But opponents argue that the process of mining and enriching uranium, used as fuel for reactors, is energy-intensive, and that nuclear power saddles future generations with the problem of what to do with the radioactive waste.
Several countries, including the U.S., Britain, Finland and Sweden, are proposing to bury nuclear waste in sealed bunkers deep underground, but progress on these projects is slow. In the U.S., for instance, there have been plans to bury waste at Yucca Mountain in southwestern Nevada since 1957, but controversy has dogged the project. The federal government is in favor, but local politicians are against having a nuclear waste repository in their state. The government expects to open the facility in 2017 at the earliest.
Although the waste issue remains unresolved, the argument that nuclear power is key to cutting carbon emissions seems to be gaining followers. Borje Eriksson, global director for the utility industries at IFS, the technology company, said the nuclear industry was pushing the environmental case and by and large getting a good reception from politicians.
"The pressure for governments to adopt greener policies and rely less on fossil fuels is accelerating nuclear expansion programs internationally. We are seeing rapid progress in Europe and Asia in particular, with Finland and Sweden leading the way."
But he said that the pace of new reactor development would hinge on whether the nuclear industry can put past problems behind it and prove it can run big capital projects efficiently, delivering plants on time and on budget.
The progress of the 1,600-megawatt Olkiluoto 3 reactor in Finland is being closely watched by governments and energy companies weighing whether to invest in new nuclear plants. Olkiluoto 3, owned by a not-for-profit cooperative of Finland's largest energy users, will be the first plant to be built in Western Europe since the early 1990s, and will include cutting-edge technology. Construction has started at the remote site, but so far the project is 12 months behind schedule and is expected to be in operation in the second quarter of 2010, not in 2009 as originally planned.
In the U.S., where nuclear plants supply 20% of the country's electricity, an industry consortium called NuStart is spearheading the development of new reactors. Last month NuStart proposed two sites for the first new nuclear plants in the U.S. in 30 years, Grand Gulf in Mississippi and Bellefonte in Alabama. Analysts predict that NuStart could receive licenses for these plants as early as next year.
Nuclear power also accounts for about 20% of the energy mix in Britain, but many of the plants are reaching the end of their lives and will close in the next decade. By 2023, all but one of Britain's reactors will have closed, making the country even more reliant on gas-fired plants.
The British government concluded in July that nuclear power should continue to make up part of the energy mix. Accenture, the consulting firm, says that to provide 15% of Britain's electricity, seven new 1,000-megawatt reactors or five 1,400-megawatt reactors would need to be built at a cost of about $8 billion.
Unlike the previous phase of nuclear development in Britain, the government has said that the private sector would have to foot the bill.
Electricite de France and Eon of Germany both have electricity customers in Britain. They both run nuclear power stations in their home markets and have expressed an interest in building new plants.
British Energy, the partly state-owned nuclear power group, wants to get involved but has insufficient financial resources to finance projects on its own. But British Energy owns many of the suitable sites for new reactors and may use this as leverage.
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Albuquerque Tribune
October 30, 2006
Labs look to turn nukes into fuel
By Sue Vorenberg
Finding a way to get rid of 34 tons of extra weapons-grade plutonium poses an interesting challenge.
The United States and Russia - under an arms reduction treaty - can't just drop it off at the dump or toss it in the garbage.
And the people who might want to take it off their hands - say, North Korea and Iran - probably wouldn't do anything nice with it.
One option in the United States is to carefully treat it, then store it at the nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, if it ever opens.
Or, if you're one of New Mexico's national laboratories, you can look at doing something even stranger with it - recycling it into commercial power.
The United States and Russia cleared a major diplomatic hurdle in September that gets both closer to getting rid of the deadly material through recycling. The two countries agreed on liability protection for the United States so it can help Russia with its part of the equation.
Both countries have been working on efforts to use plutonium to create a recycled nuclear fuel called MOX, or mixed oxide, which can power commercial nuclear plants. But the programs have been stalled for the past several years because there are risks involved and there was no liability agreement to protect either country in case something went wrong with the recycled product, said Randall Erickson, former program manager at the nuclear nonproliferation program office at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Since the early 1990s, Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories have been working on various aspects of making MOX a reality in the United States.
It's tricky, because you have to keep the material out of the wrong hands and you have to tweak it before it can be used in commercial power reactors.
Still, Erickson said he appreciates the ironic twist of turning material for nuclear bombs into something more positive.
"Somebody coined the term that we're taking megatons of nuclear weapons materials and turning it into megawatts to light the cities," Erickson said.
The 34 tons could power a nuclear plant for more than 34 years, he said.
Not everyone agrees that turning bomb materials into fuel is a good idea, including the Washington-based Union of Concerned Scientists, said Edwin Lyman, a senior staff member.
"On the surface, it sounds like a good idea, but if you start looking at it in any detail, you realize it can't fulfill that promise," Lyman said. "When you use plutonium in a light-water (power) reactor, there are characteristics that increase the likelihood of certain accidents."
That could include uncontrollable chain reactions leading to a Chernobyl-like accident, Lyman said.
Los Alamos scientists, however, say they've found a mixture of one-third plutonium and two-thirds uranium will work in conventional power plants without damaging them, Erickson said.
Los Alamos has been testing recycled fuel in France as a first step in the U.S. program. The French purified the unclassified combination of plutonium and uranium in 2004 and 2005 and turned it into fuel for a reactor in South Carolina.
That reactor has been test-burning the fuel since summer 2005, Erickson said.
"Everything is performing as they anticipated," he said. "In truth, this technology was not a major leap."
That doesn't mean the plutonium is completely secure, Lyman argued.
"There's an issue about whether reactor sites will have to increase security because of the threat of fuel being stolen," Lyman said.
Also, plutonium fuel creates different nuclear byproducts as it breaks down and it burns hotter than uranium, so it will put more stress on a conventional power plant system, Lyman said.
"You just don't want to do anything to increase the risks," Lyman said. "The MOX program has always been the more dangerous, riskier option."
Lyman would prefer the U.S. surplus plutonium be treated and buried in Yucca Mountain.
Besides, there's no world uranium shortage looming at this point, he said.
"Uranium resources, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, are going to remain ample for quite some time - 75 years to a century," Lyman said. "The thing is that none of these recycling schemes will make a significant dent in the amount of uranium we use anyway."
Either way, the United States and Russia are years away from actually burning the 34 tons of plutonium in commercial reactors, Erickson said.
After the test is finished, the United States will have to build its own MOX fuel fabrication facility and a facility to take the weapons-grade plutonium and break it down into a powder. Those facilities are slated for the Savannah River Site in South Carolina, Erickson said.
The United States will also have to help Russia create similar facilities in the same time frame, because the two countries' programs must run parallel, Erickson said.
"It's early in the process," Erickson said. "It will probably be in the 2014 to 2015 time frame before they're ready. It's not a short-term program."
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Centre Daily Times
October 30, 2006
Nuclear waste project represents true success story
Despite fears of the unknown, a deep underground repository in southeastern New Mexico being used for the disposal of plutonium-contaminated nuclear waste from the defense program has been up and running for almost a decade and is demonstrating great benefits -- short-term and possibly long-term -- to the public.
Completed seven years ago, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) is the world's first underground repository for the permanent disposal of nuclear waste. So far, more than 81,000 containers of long-lived transuranic waste have been placed in the facility.
Some of the waste has been shipped more than 1,000 miles by truck from government defense installations in South Carolina, Idaho and Washington state, demonstrating that highly radioactive materials can be transported long distances safely and placed in an underground facility without harm to the public.
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) manages WIPP, and its successful operation after years of litigation by anti-nuclear groups and efforts by the state government of New Mexico to halt construction of the repository, show that DOE is perfectly capable of handling another controversial project -- the storage of spent fuel from nuclear power plants at the Yucca Mountain geologic repository in Nevada.
DOE's experience with WIPP is not unlike the one it is having with the Yucca Mountain project.
Back in the 1980s, anti-nuclear groups claimed that shipping containers of plutonium-contaminated waste along interstate highways was unsafe. But so far there have been more than 5,000 shipments to WIPP without a radioactive incident, and they are proceeding at the rate of about 25 a week.
It's a record that matches the safe shipment of spent fuel in the United States -- about 3,000 shipments by truck and railroad without a single release of radiation.
The WIPP repository is a network of tunnels and chambers carved out of a salt cavern deep beneath the New Mexico desert about 25 miles from Carlsbad. The last shipments of transuranic waste to WIPP are scheduled to be completed in about 30 years, and then the repository will be closed.
The Yucca Mountain repository, on the other hand, won't be sealed for many years. Plans call for the Nevada facility to remain open for at least 300 years, so that scientists and engineers can study the environmental effects of the heat emanating from spent-fuel canisters to make certain the facility operates safely.
Another reason to keep the repository open for storage -- and not immediate disposal -- is that someday we will want to retrieve the spent fuel for recycling.
It contains valuable nuclear materials that can be reprocessed into new fuel for use at nuclear power plants to produce electricity. Such reprocessing is currently being done by France, Great Britain and several other countries.
Another of its major benefits is to greatly reduce the amount of high-level radioactive waste that must be placed in a repository for permanent disposal.
It is estimated there will be 70,000 metric tons of spent fuel from nuclear power plants when the Yucca Mountain repository opens in 2017, which is the maximum amount of spent fuel that Congress designated to be stored in the facility when it passed the Nuclear Waste Policy Act more than a decade ago.
Congress needs to raise the ceiling to 120,000 metric tons, so there will be additional space for spent fuel resulting from the continued operation of today's nuclear plants and any more plants that might be built.
Congress also should authorize construction of an interim storage facility to hold spent fuel near the Yucca Mountain site until construction of the repository is completed.
The nuclear waste program needs to be removed from the annual appropriations process so that money collected from utility ratepayers and going into the Nuclear Waste Fund is used for its intended purpose and not be diverted to pay for other government programs.
The safe storage of spent fuel in an underground repository at Yucca Mountain could have a major impact on facilitating the use of nuclear power to meet the growing need for electricity in the world.
That could be the real legacy of the experience gained from the WIPP project.
Forrest Remick is professor of nuclear engineering emeritus at Penn State and retired member of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The opinion of the columnist does not necessarily reflect the viewpoint of the university.
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Pahrump Valley Times
October 28, 2006
Dairy, ethics issues stir up Dist. 36 race
By Mark Waite
PVT
The Nevada Assembly District 36 race appears to be heating up, with Democrat Laurayne Murray and Republican Ed Goedhart trading accusations during the last two candidate forums.
Both candidates fielded questions about receiving donations from the Focus Property Group at the Pahrump Valley Rotary Club candidates forum at the Saddle West Hotel and Casino Oct. 19. Focus Group received approval from Nye County Commissioners Sept. 19 for a development agreement to build up to 5,800 homes.
Both candidates acknowledged they received $3,000.
"I received that during the primary, and I received that before Focus Group came before the Regional Planning Commission requesting all their waivers, and I voted no," Murray said.
Members of the Goedhart campaign disputed that statement.
RPC minutes from the May 10 meeting show Commissioner Carrick "Bat" Masterson suggesting Focus Group develop six units per acre instead of eight.
Murray seconded a motion to approve a master plan amendment for the 900-acre Focus Group site from a general commercial and a business park/light industrial zone to a mixed-use zone. She also seconded and voted for the zone change, with the recommendation that Focus Group be allowed six units per acre for individual residences and 16 units per acre for multi-family apartments.
The motion requested that an agreement be reached with the Hafen family over the alignment of Manse Road; a development agreement be required; a buffer built between the development and neighboring properties; and concerns be given on the extension of Thousandaire Boulevard.
Murray also voted for the conditional use permit for the 72-acre gaming establishment site.
Goedhart shrugged off his contribution. "I have received contributions from over 150 people. The Focus Group, I guess they wanted to make sure they didn't offend anyone."
Murray said both candidates agree on some of the same concerns: clean water, education, immigration and health care. But she said, "I hold myself to the highest ethical standards, that in the face of any ethical question I even took the personal initiative to request an opinion on my own from the Commission on Ethics to be sure all my actions as an official uphold all the letter and spirit of the law."
Murray replied she would make public her request for an opinion by the Ethics Commission, which she filed a year ago but has yet to receive. Her husband Tim is a firefighter for the Pahrump Valley Fire and Rescue Service as well as a contract negotiator for the firefighters union.
Laurayne Murray said town attorneys approved her votes on the fire and rescue service -- which included items like purchasing fire trucks and equipment -- as long as they don't personally benefit her.
Goedhart's platform includes strengthening the powers of the ethics commission as well as cracking down more on sex offenders to require neighborhood notification.
Murray charged Goedhart, as a member of the Amargosa Valley Town Board, went in front of the Nye County Commission to speak in favor of an issue that was opposed by numerous residents of his community.
Goedhart said after the forum that Murray was referring to a board resolution opposing concentrated animal feeding operations like the Ponderosa Dairy. Goedhart said he spoke in front of county commissioners as a private resident, not on behalf of the board.
The resolution followed a petition drive. It would ensure monitoring of the Amargosa Valley dairy industry and restrict dairy operations to their current locations. A group of local residents were concerned over the purchase of the Last Trails Ranch by the dairy.
Amargosa Valley board member Jan Cameron complained about the flies, the dropping water table and the damage to local roads from the dairy. The Nye County Commission June 21, 2005, adopted a motion by Commissioner Joni Eastley to deny the resolution, Commissioner Candice Trummell said the county was pre-empted from acting on it, since the dairy is already regulated by the Nevada Division of Environmental Protection and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Goedhart served three, two-year terms on the Amargosa Valley town board and stepped down at the end of 2005. He told the Nye County Commission, "I'm going to be the best corporate citizen I can, but at the same point in time, I have to run a business, and I can't have the governing members on the town board okaying or nixing every plan that I have."
Both candidates came out against Yucca Mountain. While Nevada can receive some financial support from the federal government, Murray said, "I don't feel it's the type of project that we can trust the government to keep our communities safe. I don't believe we've gotten sound science on that yet. I don't believe we have any information they can safely transport spent nuclear waste."
Goedhart, a longtime critic of the project as a resident living down-grade from Yucca Mountain, said, "I have a lot of problems with the fact, every year they come up with a different design." He said by the time it opens, now projected for 2017, it will quickly run out of space to store the expected 77,000 tons of nuclear waste.
Goedhart suggested recycling nuclear waste in places like England and France. "Instead of being a waste dump we can be the cutting edge on reprocessing," he said.
Goedhart didn't attend the candidates forum held at the Amargosa Valley gym Oct. 15. But he replied to a question raised there that he is no longer manager of the Ponderosa Dairy, he is now in charge of commodities procurement and alternative energy programs for Rockview Dairies.
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In Business Las Vegas
October 27, 2006
In Business Q and A
John Ensign, United States senator, R-Nev.
Interviewed by Richard Velotta
Staff Writer
Republican Sen. John Ensign has come a long way since a heartbreaking political defeat in 1998.
After serving two terms in the U.S. House, Ensign, a veterinarian by trade, ran for Senate against Democrat Harry Reid. He lost by 428 votes.
But Ensign rebounded two years later, handily winning the Senate seat vacated by retiring Sen. Richard Bryan in a race against Las Vegas attorney Ed Bernstein.
Today, Ensign and Reid are more readily viewed as a team, representing Nevada in a number of us-against-them issues ranging from Yucca Mountain to gaming industry conflicts.
In his first term, Ensign has become an influential voice for fiscal conservatism and limited government. He was assigned to the Armed Services; Budget and Commerce, Science and Transportation committees, chairing the subcommittees on Technology, Innovation and Competitiveness and Readiness and Management Support.
He's running for re-election this year against Democratic challenger Jack Carter, the subject of a planned Q&A in next week's In Business Las Vegas.
Ensign spoke to In Business about the business issues of the campaign.
Question: What is the most pressing issue facing the Southern Nevada economy and what are you doing about it?
Answer: Well one of the biggest issues that we face here is water and we are getting close to tapping out or allocation from the Colorado River. So to keep a healthy economy here, we have to look at innovative ways to take care of that and one of things I've done is a land bill and hopefully when we get back right after the election we'll be able to pass it as a "cash for grass" program that would up-front the money to public institutions, mainly schools, that right now can't afford the upfront costs to take out some of their outdoor turf.
It allows the upfront costs to replace that grass with xeriscaping and it will save our schools millions of dollars a year in landscaping and water bills and the Water District tells me it will save about 45,000 acre feet and we use somewhere around 75,000 acre feet — enough water for close to half a million people. And this won't cost taxpayers any money.
Question: So this is specifically for institutional users?
Answer: Right now, residential folks have been taking advantage of what the Water District does, so this is strictly for institutional folks that can't afford the upfront costs.
Question: Some members of the Nevada congressional delegation were favoring a detailed study of the regulation of Internet gambling instead of the outright ban that was passed. What's your personal stance on the issue?
Answer: I thought that the study was a better way to go. The ban that was passed was put in there to try to keep gambling over the Internet away from children. The problem is that with the technology that is out there today with enough smart people and so much money at stake, I think that the technology is going to get around the ban in a fairly short period of time.
That's what a lot of the experts have been telling me. So the ban probably won't have a tremendous amount of an effect in the first place, but we'll have to wait and see on that. I think even with the ban, you should do the study.
Question: How will the law affect Internet gambling?
Answer: I'm not a prognosticator on that. We'll have to wait and see how it works and if the public is willing to accept it or not. Prohibition didn't work because the public wouldn't go along with it. They just kept breaking the law. That's why I mentioned that if the technology gets around it and if people just want to break the law, that's what's going to happen.
Question: Have there been any more efforts regarding legislation to ban betting on college and amateur sports?
Answer: When I was first in the Senate, we killed the effort to ban betting on college sports teams. That's an effort, by the way, that everyone said was going to go sailing through. When I got on the conference committee, I got enough Republicans to support me and Harry Reid got enough Democrats. Together, we were able to kill that bill.
Question: Energy costs have risen dramatically over the past six years and have added tremendously to business costs. What is your energy policy? Do you feel the big oil companies that have reported gigantic profits are unfairly exploiting the cost of oil?
Answer: The bottom line is we are too dependent on fossil fuels today, including oil and especially foreign oil. We have to have a multi-pronged approach to solving the energy problem. In the short run, we need more domestic exploration. We just have to, to have fossil fuels that we need from domestic sources. Secondly, long-term, we need to get less dependent on fossil fuel so we that we can pursue modern technology that will provide alternative energy and lessen our dependence on fossil fuel.
Question: Would you favor reimposing a windfall profits tax on oil companies?
Answer: Actually, it's not the windfall profits tax, we just need to take away their royalty relief. I joined (Democrat) Ron Wyden from Oregon in voting for that. We should take away the royalty relief that they have because there's no question the big oil companies certainly don't need the reward with their record high profits. They don't need to incentivize them right now.
Question: Should lawmakers do something to stabilize fuel prices, which are threatening to hurt tourism with each increase at the pump?
Answer: When I mentioned the short-term strategy for domestic exploration and the long-term strategy to have more alternative fuels developed, I believe that will solve high fuel prices.
Question: The federal budget deficit has increased dramatically during the past six years although it dropped from its expected level this year. What are your thoughts on the budget deficit, and who is to blame for the ballooning national debt?
Answer: When President Bush took office, he inherited an economy in recession and 9/11 hit shortly after that, which sent us into a deeper recession. We also had to start spending money on Homeland Security and we had to spend money on the war in Afghanistan and, eventually, the war in Iraq. For a couple of years, we passed tax cuts which helped stimulate the economy so that we could actually deduct that it's going down instead of up. We have a stronger economy because of tax cuts.
The responsibility for the deficit falls on those politicians in Washington who want to continue to just increase spending and increase spending and increase spending without any accountability. They want to be re-elected by giving people things instead of making the tough votes like I've been willing to take to show fiscal responsibility. I think the deficit is a big problem and it's not just the deficit, it's the debt.
The annual deficit is one thing, but the debt is a bigger problem, especially with the baby-boomers coming up toward retirement. When they start retiring, it is a dangerous thing that is going to happen in the country – the population explosion with our entitlement program. We have to get that debt and deficit under control before we ever see the baby-boomers retire.
Question: President Bush takes every opportunity to press Congress to make his tax cuts permanent. Do you favor making his tax cuts permanent? Why or why not?
Answer: If you want the economy to go back the other direction, you should want repeal of the tax cuts. I personally like a healthy economy. The tax cuts have worked to help us have this healthy economy and I favor making the tax cuts permanent.
Question: What can be done to prevent Nevada tip-earners from being unfairly targeted in the IRS' tax compliance program?
Answer: That's already being done. Sen. Reid and I worked with the IRS commissioner and the Culinary Union as well as the gaming industry. I actually just got a notice today that the notice is going out to all employees that the IRS made a mistake. They should not have sent out those notices, they were going back on their agreement and we've had a history of this happening in Nevada as a lot of folks know. The bottom line is, when the IRS signs an agreement with folks, they have to keep their agreement. We brought them in our offices and threatened the IRS and they backed down and we're very happy about that because what they were trying to do was absolutely wrong.
Question: What should be done to enable Nevadans to take sales tax deductions on their federal income tax returns, since there is no state income tax -- a benefit residents got for two years in previous legislation?
Answer: Being able to get to deduct our sales tax was something I helped get passed into law. It's a question of fairness. Other states can deduct their (state) income tax off their federal income tax and we can't because we don't have one. We should at least be able to deduct our sales tax. I think that when we get back – I'm hoping anyway, when we get back – that we will be able to pass that right after the election so that Nevadans, before the end of the year when they start filing their taxes, will actually be able to do their proper claiming.
Question: Is the legislation already drafted?
Answer: It's ready to go. It's just a question of whether we can get it passed when we get back.
Question: There are a large number of transportation-oriented projects important to Nevada on the horizon. Give your assessment of the likelihood of additional or earlier funding to speed up the Interstate 15 corridor to Southern California.
Answer: That traffic going down to California and actually all over the Las Vegas Valley is just horrible. It hurts our economy. It makes our economy less efficient and we have large infrastructure needs. I believe that it's important that we get the privately funded fast train, the high-speed train to Southern California. I hope that the folks that are putting that together will be able to get the funding that they need. It's literally private funding and I think could be very effective.
But the more lanes that we could put on I-15, the better. It's still the lifeblood to Southern Nevada. The other infrastructure we need to keep people coming here, obviously, is the airport. The airport is going to be at capacity much earlier than ever expected and before we get the Ivanpah airport built, McCarran is going to be way past capacity. So we have some serious infrastructure needs that no one could have ever predicted or funded here in the Las Vegas Valley because the growth has been so staggering.
We passed the largest transportation bill in history in Congress and the president signed it into law. We got our fair share out of that, but it still doesn't meet our needs. We're going to have to do a lot more and look for very innovative ways to do that. One of those ways that we have talked about is — as long as it's not forced on people — an alternative private toll road. Let's say you have I-15 and right next to it, you have a toll road. If you want to drive free and wait a little longer in traffic or if you want to pay a fee and go down that toll road, you have the option. There are plenty of folks out there willing to put up private capital to do that. I think that may be one of the ways we're going to have to look at solving our infrastructure problems.
Question: So if I'm reading you right, taking innovative approaches to these transportation issues will deflect some of the criticism that even you have of lawmakers who get special projects for their home districts.
Answer: The earmarking process is out of control Most of it cannot be justified. They have project that are literally in the dead of night that if somebody had to try to defend that on the floor of the Senate, they couldn't. I've never asked for anything that I didn't think I couldn't defend on the floor of the Senate. That part of the earmarking process is not wrong. It's the earmarking process out of control that we need to bring it back in control and have it in the light of day where people have to justify it.
Question: Nevada continues to fight the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump. What's your assessment of the battle? Would the state be better served accepting the waste and potential economic benefits of having it here?
Answer: Yucca Mountain is bad for Nevada, it's bad for the country. It's too expensive. It's going to be a $100 billion project and we'd need two Yucca Mountains, not just one. Yucca Mountain could only handle the waste that's there today. A second one would have to be built for future use. I've been able to delay funding from the Budget Committee and the Defense Committee and Sen. Reid has been able to delay funding from the Appropriations side.
Those delays have caused delays in the project to the point where even the biggest proponents of Yucca Mountain say it may not happen. Now, we can look at alternatives. Recycling the waste, reprocessing and various other alternatives that we need to look at instead of just taking that very valuable fuel and burying it at Yucca Mountain. We'd be unlocking that fuel and make us less dependent on fossil fuel.
Question: So the technology is evolving to the point where we can now consider recycling it?
Answer: France and England have been doing it for years. They've been doing what's called reprocessing. Jimmy Carter stopped us from doing that back in the '70s, but there is even more and better recycling technology that needs to be perfected but it's out there. The potential is very high. Instead of putting the money into Yucca Mountain, we need to develop the alternatives.
Question: Several state leaders say renewable energy is the next big economic boon for Nevada and some have suggested that more should be done by the federal government to help get solar, wind and geothermal projects off the ground. What's your view?
Answer: I'm a big supporter of alternative energy and technology is a big part of our answer for our energy future and Nevada can lead the way in that. We already have one of the highest renewable portfolio standards for Nevada Power than anyplace in the country. We have more geothermal than anyone. We have great possibilities for wind generation and obviously everybody knows about the possibility of solar generating power here. We need more and more of those. The federal government has done a lot on that, but we need to do more.
Question: Presuming that border security is a given need, what should be done about the 12 million undocumented workers already in the United States? Should they be allowed a path to citizenship?
Answer: I think the 12 million that are here, after they go through a criminal background check and if they are willing to sign up and pay a fee — a fairly substantial fee to pay for all the processing that it's going to take and as long as they're not a criminal — they can be part of a three-year temporary worker program. If they're working, great. If they try to go on government benefits, I'm sorry — they're not eligible for any government benefits.
Secondly, we want to reward them with more time if they do some good things like learn English and learn it proficiently and take a business class. Give them an extra year if they learn English proficiently and take a business class. Give them an extra year if they have a job with health care. If their employer will sign an affidavit saying that they'll provide them with health care for another 12 months, give them a bonus year for that.
Leave permanent residency and citizenship off the table for right now, leave it out of the legislation because it will kill the legislation. We have to prove to the American people that we have secured the borders. We have an employee-verification system that's working and then we have a temporary-worker program that's working effectively.
Later on, we can deal with all those other issues, but for right now, we have to prove those three things are working because in 1986, they said "We'll secure the borders and let's do amnesty as well." Well, they gave the amnesty, but they never secured the voters. We have to prove to the American people that this stuff is working before you can talk about anything like that.
Question: You hold a leadership role in a Senate technology committee. What's happening with that?
Answer: We had a technology summit here today at the Community College. We had Dr. (Paul) Jacobs from Qualcomm and Dr. (Craig) Barrett from Intel, the heads of both of those worldwide companies. They were two of our guest speakers, we had panels. We asked how can Nevada be more competitive. How can we attract more high-tech jobs here and how can we grow more high-tech jobs here in our own state? It was a great summit, we had educational leaders there. We had all kinds of folks from around the country as well as from right here in Nevada on panels. My position as one of the leaders on technology issues in the Senate, I think it's important that I bring folks here to show our state off, and also to teach folks here what we can do better to help diversify our economy.
Question: What was the response when you asked what the state could do better to attract high-tech?
Answer: The No. 1 issue that always comes up is education. It's education, education, education. It's K through 12, community college as well as our universities. We have to improve them. The bottom line is, we can't compare against other states, we have to compare how we're doing globally.
Secondly, we have to maintain that low-tax, low-regulatory climate that we have. That's good. We have that advantage. And then, a lot of it also is infrastructure. We have to continue to build our infrastructure here, not only our roads, but also our high-tech infrastructure.
But we need to look to grow from within. That's one of the lessons we learned today, not just to attract people from outside. Some of these places like San Diego, they grew it up. Qualcomm, some of the companies they had down there they actually grew up from down there. They didn't import them from anyplace else, it was local talent that they grew up there with that entrepreneurial spirit. We have a lot of entrepreneurial spirit and we need to start capitalizing more on that.
Question: How do you keep a low-tax environment and still maintain the infrastructure in a state that is growing faster than everybody else?
Answer: You need to be very innovative. I talked about solving the water issues without costing the taxpayer any money. I talked about some of our transportation infrastructure. Without raising taxes, you can have toll roads as alternatives to get people by traffic and things like that. Some of this stuff takes investment, but also a decrease in the bureaucracy so more of the money gets to the classroom is a big part of the answer. We can pay teachers a lot more money if we spent less money on bureaucracy. If you pay teachers more for performance, pay them more and you'll get better people in the classroom. If you get better teachers, you're going to have better schools.
Question: Assess your opponent, Democrat Jack Carter.
Answer: I haven't had a lot to say about my opponent during this election and I don't think he's had a lot to say about me. He seems to be running against President Bush. This race is for who can represent Nevada best in the United States Senate. My family has been here since 1906 and I've lived all over the state of Nevada and have represented the great folks of Nevada for the last six years in the Senate and understand Nevada issues. I think there was a clear difference between my opponent and myself last Sunday night in the debate and I'll let the voters decide who they think will represent them best. I have a very proud record of accomplishment for the people of Nevada and I'll continue to fight for them on issues that are important to them as long as they want to send me back.
--Richard N. Velotta covers tourism for In Business Las Vegas and its sister publication, the Las Vegas Sun. He can be reached at (702) 259-4061 or by e-mail at velotta@lasvegassun.com.
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Chemistry World
October 27, 2006
Plutonium hitchhikers take the fast stream
Richard Van Noorden
The radioactive element plutonium can travel through groundwater despite its low solubility: it hitches a ride on tiny colloid particles in the water.
Russian, American and French researchers have imaged plutonium clinging to mineral colloids around four kilometres away from a contaminated lake near a nuclear waste processing plant in Mayak, Russia.
The team’s findings support earlier studies of radionuclide migration through water. A US group led by geochemist Annie Kersting reported in 1999 that plutonium, and other radioactive isotopes, might use colloids to travel unsuspected distances from underground nuclear testing sites in Nevada. It wasn’t clear then exactly how this happened.
Now, says co-author Rodney Ewing, from the University of Michigan, US, researchers have identified the colloids responsible, at least at Mayak. They used high-resolution microscopy to identify iron oxide phases carrying plutonium from Lake Karachai, contaminated by a nuclear fuel reprocessing spill half a century ago.
The small colloids are ubiquitous to groundwater, Ewing explained. They form weak bonds with amorphous plutonium hydroxide, which has limited solubility in water. Ewing hopes the team’s findings will settle some debates about the importance of colloids as a transport mechanism for plutonium and other actinide elements. Some scientists suggest that organic matter, dissolved in water, might also offer plutonium a useful taxi service.
Little can be done about plutonium’s spread around Mayak and similarly contaminated sites. But plans to store nuclear waste underground may need to consider the possibility of colloidal transport.
European storage programmes in Finland and Sweden pack tight clay (bentonite) around copper and cast iron canisters holding nuclear waste. This provides a barrier to water and colloid transport of radionuclides, explained Charles McCombie, an advisor on international nuclear waste management programmes. In the UK, similar cement-like barriers would encapsulate steel or concrete containers, said John Dalton of Nirex, an independent organisation advising the government on nuclear waste storage.
But the US waste programme doesn’t propose any clay barrier, said McCombie. The US plan is to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, in containers which would last for thousands of years, while water is diverted round storage tunnels.
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Scientific American
October 26, 2006
Colloids in Russia: Have Plutonium, Will Travel
Among the list of environmental disasters created by Soviet central planning, Mayak must rank high. Commissioned as a plant in southern Russia to manufacture plutonium for bombs in 1948, it soon segued into a long life as a reprocessing center for nuclear material from reactors and decommissioned weapons. But Mayak, or "beacon" in Russian, created its own radioactive waste as well--uranium, plutonium and other actinides--and, at least in the beginning and possibly well into the 1950s, dumped them into surrounding waterways, including the now dry Lake Karachai as well as two adjacent rivers: the Techa and Mishelyak. "If you need a well-contaminated site, it's a dream come true," deadpans Rod Ewing, a nuclear materials scientist at the University of Michigan. "They put a lot of actinides right into the groundwater."
Ewing's Russian colleagues, led by Alexander Novikov of the Russian Academy of Sciences, sampled the groundwater taken from wells up to four kilometers from the scene of original contamination, where radioactivity levels reach roughly 1,000 becquerels (nuclei decaying per second) per liter. Even at that distance, the researchers still measured 0.16 becquerel per liter. Because uranium and plutonium are heavy elements and have low solubility in water, some scientists had expected such contamination to be relatively immobile. Yet, at Mayak, the contamination had spread at least three kilometers in just 55 years. How?
Ewing and his American colleagues used imaging to confirm that the radioactive materials were hitching a ride on colloids--nanoscale particles smaller than one micrometer--specifically, iron oxides present in the groundwater. "These are actual mineral fragments carried in the water," Ewing explains. They are grabbing onto "the uranium and plutonium and carrying it some kilometers away." These iron oxide particles--and other colloids--typically have a negative charge, and the positively charged actinides simply attach to their surfaces electrostatically. And the actinides don't dissolve off the particles, either: "It stays with the solids and travels with them even though the concentrations in solution are low enough that if it was a plutonium solid you would have expected it to dissolve," Ewing notes.
Confirming that actinides can travel on colloids is but a first step. "It further corroborates our understanding of plutonium in the subsurface: it is colloidal, it does move, it's not immobile," says Annie Kersting, a geochemist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. "If you found it there, that's not the endpoint that's just where they put their well. It would be nice to come up with some boundaries on transport concentrations." That work remains critically important for determining how any kind of nuclear repository, such as Yucca Mountain in Nevada, might behave over time as well as for assessing contamination at sites in the U.S. and worldwide.
And iron oxide particles may just be the first transporting colloid that has been clearly identified. Humic acid--an organic complex--and a host of other colloids might serve a similar purpose, as recent research at Rocky Flats in Colorado has shown. "This is a dilemma because it's really difficult; in groundwaters, colloids are ubiquitous," Ewing notes. "It's bad luck that they can be transportation vectors for some of these actinides." In that case, Mayak may serve as a beacon--albeit one of warning--after all. "It's important to look at the geochemistry of the environment to help us in our understanding of what exactly is going to move that plutonium," Kersting adds. "But we need to get away from this idea that plutonium doesn't move, because it does."
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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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