Yucca Mountain News Clips
Sunday, December 31, 2006
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Las Vegas SUN
December 31, 2006

Editorial: Leaving a strong legacy

Guinn made positive changes to state of Nevada during his eight years as governor

Gov. Kenny Guinn leaves office tomorrow after eight years, having changed state government in ways not normally associated with a Republican, especially in an era when too many Republicans demonize government.

His legacy will include:

The Millennium Scholarship, which he successfully created with the state's tobacco settlement money, giving high-achieving Nevada high school graduates money for college.

The Senior Rx program, which provides insurance coverage for nearly 10,000 low-income seniors to help pay for medications.

An $830 million tax increase in the 2003 Legislature, which funded essential government services.

Guinn took considerable criticism for raising taxes (and didn't get much credit for pushing a $300 million rebate two years later), but it was the right thing to do, coming a dozen years after the last state tax increase. While conservatives played Chicken Little, saying the economy would crumble after the tax increase, the economy came back stronger than ever.

Despite his calm, easygoing demeanor, Guinn was active in his two terms. He opened his first term in 1999 by auditing state government and then reorganizing it, cutting 800 positions and freezing another 1,600. He also privatized the state's workers' compensation program.

Guinn pledged to help improve health care in Nevada and had success beyond Senior Rx, restoring money to mental health services and opening a new and much-needed psychiatric hospital in Las Vegas.

Guinn made missteps to be sure, notably serving as the Nevada co-chairman of President Bush's 2004 re-election campaign after the president approved the proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Still, Guinn did make Yucca Mountain a priority, pushing the state's legal fight and leading a fundraising drive to pay for it.

Above all, Guinn didn't let partisan desires drive his time in office and governed from the center. While we sometimes disagreed with him, we believe he had the best interest of the state in mind.

In the end, he leaves a legacy to be proud of.

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Las Vegas SUN
December 31, 2006

Editorial: Embracing winds of change

Shifts in political force and people's demands made '06 a dynamic year for state, nation

The year 2006 may well be remembered as one of turning points.

On the national level, tensions rose as casualties mounted in the Iraq war. With the U.S. death toll nearing 3,000, Americans grew increasingly disenchanted with President Bush's war policy and made their views known at the polls in November, with Democrats gaining control of both the House and Senate for the first time since 1994.

The day after the election, Bush announced the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, whose know-it-all, go-it-alone approach and contempt for administration critics have been disastrous in conducting the Iraq war. It remains to be seen, however, whether Bush will also change his approach to the war or simply repackage the same failed policies with a new defense secretary. So far, we are not encouraged.

With Democrats controlling Congress, Nevada's own Sen. Harry Reid is to become Senate majority leader and one of the two most powerful elected officials on Capitol Hill. With Reid in charge of the Senate, efforts to bury high-level nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain northwest of Las Vegas could be stalled indefinitely, as they should be.

For Nevada, 2006 also was a year in which Reid's influence, the state's racial and ethnic diversity and its strong unionized workforce gained the attention of the Democratic National Committee, which chose Nevada to be the second state in the nation to hold a presidential caucus in 2008.

And despite Arizona edging ahead as the nation's fastest-growing state - a title Nevada had held for 19 straight years - the Silver State's growth remains steady and its economy is booming. Housing sales, although lower by Nevada standards, still eclipsed those of other regions.

Certainly, serious challenges will confront us as 2007 unfolds. Nationally, Congress will have to work hard to undo the damage inflicted by the ethical transgressions and industry-pandering policies that flourished under years of Republican leadership. And Nevada will continue to wrestle with expanding its transportation system, finding enough funding for increasing education demands and creating better health care access for residents.

We hope that in 2007 Nevadans will continue to embrace change and take the steps that are necessary to tackle the state's challenges and improve life here for everyone.

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Reno Gazette-Journal
December 30, 2006

Edwards courts Nevadans with Reno campaign stop

Anjeanette Damon

Paying homage to Nevada's new status as an early caucus state in the 2008 presidential race, former U.S. Sen. John Edwards challenged voters gathered in a Reno convention hall Friday to act now to change America.

Edwards echoed the message he has been delivering this week in a presidential kickoff tour of early primary states that his will be a "grass-roots campaign."

"We will never change this country without you," he said. "We want you to help us figure out what needs to be done in this country because there is so much that needs to be done. We cannot stay home and wait for the next election."

Edwards is the first declared presidential candidate to visit Northern Nevada, managing to attract a holiday crowd of more than 1,000 people to his "townhall meeting" at the Grand Sierra Resort and Casino.

After a short speech declaring his opposition to the Iraq war and calling on America to resume its position as a moral leader in the world, Edwards spent about 40 minutes answering questions from the audience.

Responding to questions, Edwards said:

He would not sacrifice priorities such as universal health care, fighting poverty and reducing the country's reliance on foreign oil for eliminating the national deficit.

He supports allowing illegal immigrants "to earn their way to citizenship" after paying a fine and learning English.

Same-sex couples in civil unions should enjoy the same rights as heterosexual couples.

He leans against implementing a gasoline tax as a way to curb reliance on foreign oil because it is a regressive tax that would burden the poor and middle class.

He also expressed regret for his vote in support of the Iraq war and said he rejects the idea of preemptive war.

Edwards, 53, is a former one-term senator from North Carolina who built personal wealth as a trial lawyer after growing up in a blue collar family in a tiny mill town.

Edwards comes to Nevada with a fairly established base of support. He is well known as Massachusetts U.S. Sen. John Kerry's running mate in his failed 2004 bid for the presidency.

Edwards also has been courting the state's significant labor union interests, visiting the state earlier this year to stump for the union-backed minimum wage increase initiative.

But Edwards' past support of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository might hurt him in Nevada, analysts said. In 2002, Edwards voted in the Senate against Gov. Kenny Guinn's attempt to veto the project.

In 2004, when Kerry campaigned heavily against the project, Edwards told U.S. Sen. Harry Reid and U.S. Rep. Shelley Berkley that he would defer to Kerry's position on the project, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

In explaining his Yucca Mountain votes to reporters after the event, Edwards came dangerously close to repeating Kerry's fatal 2004 blunder of "I actually did vote for the $87 billion (for the Iraq War) before I voted against it."

"You should know actually I had two votes on Yucca Mountain a long time ago," Edwards said. "What happened was a I voted against Yucca Mountain, and then there was a second vote. And the second vote, we had an issue in North Carolina where they were going to start storing nuclear waste in North Carolina unless we had some other place for the nuclear waste."

Edwards said the Yucca Mountain project doesn't make sense from a "national perspective" and would not support the project if elected president.

Speaking to the crowd Edwards said: "In my view, and it is not a new position for me, but my view is that Yucca Mountain does not work. Period."

Jane Grossman, a management consultant from Reno, left the rally with a new admiration for Edwards.

"I'm still leaning toward Barack Obama if he runs, but I've become a John Edwards fan," she said. "I was very impressed. He was smart. He seems like he has a ton of integrity."

Edwards' visit is the first in what is expected to be a parade of 2008 presidential hopefuls to Northern Nevada. So far, Nevada's status as an early caucus state has drawn candidates to campaign only in Clark County.

Edwards campaigned in Northern Nevada in October for state Sen. Dina Titus, as did Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack.

Some pundits have suggested candidates will pay scant attention to most of the state in order to focus on Clark County, home to 71 percent of registered Democrats.

But Democratic strategist Dan Hart of Las Vegas said concentrating solely on Clark County may prove to be a folly.

"If that is the conventional wisdom and everybody is going by that, then they will divide up those votes in Clark County," Hart said. "That means Washoe is fertile ground."

Many in the crowd were excited to don their new role as critical players in the presidential nomination process.

"It's time for Nevada to have a spot on the national stage," said Mary Harcinske, a Reno nurse.

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Pahrump Valley Times
December 30, 2006

Signal pact approved

By Mark Waite
PVT

An interlocal agreement with the Nevada Department of Transportation to jointly pay for a traffic light at Homestead Road and Highway 160 was approved by Nye County Commissioners during a special conference call Wednesday morning.

The vote was 4-0 in favor. Commissioner Candice Trummell was absent.

Nye County Commissioner Patricia Cox, in her final meeting, unclogged the log jam after she spoke to Nevada Department of Transportation Director Jeff Fontaine, who explained that the state will pay $450,000 plus engineering costs, not $350,000 as was previously thought.

The state will pay $250,000 from a traffic safety grant and $200,000 from an NDOT cost-sharing plan, Cox said. The motion states the project won't exceed $1.05 million.

Nye County plans to use $750,000 from Payment Equal to Taxes it receives from the U.S. Department of Energy for the land value of Yucca Mountain and $300,000 in impact fees for its share.

Commission Chairman Gary Hollis still had some reservations about the agreement. "I don't want to set a precedent that we have to fund every light in the future," he said.

Cox said the county can specify what improvements it wants NDOT to construct in its annual program. But she said the county has to step up to the plate on this project.

"They have a budget just like we do, and if it's not in their budget for a traffic light, we're not going to get one," Cox said.

Commissioner Roberta "Midge" Carver, a county liaison to the Regional Transportation Commission added, "I'm not going to sit here and not see the light get done."

The only resident at the meeting in the county administration building, Dan Schinhofen, reminded commissioners they had unanimously approved a resolution to get this done back in May.

"I've had my own family members have close calls at this intersection," Schinhofen said.

Commissioner-elect Andrew "Butch" Borasky, whose term begins next week, asked, "If NDOT had $2.5 million to do a roundabout, how come they don't have more money to do this?"

Cox said NDOT would've paid for the entire cost of a roundabout with federal traffic safety program funds. But Pahrump residents soundly rejected a proposed roundabout during meetings late last spring.

The traffic signal could take another year to be installed. Traffic signals have to be custom fabricated, according to NDOT.

The Homestead and Winery Road intersection with Highway 160 is one of a number of intersections about which Pahrump residents have cried out for a traffic signal.

During a county commission meeting last week, Alex Mendez of CivilWise Services said the average daily traffic count on Homestead Road was 1,423 vehicles.

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Pahrump Valley Times
December 30, 2006

Commission prepares for '07

PVT

Nye County Commissioners will consider a fire assistance agreement with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and Nevada Division of Forestry for volunteer fire departments during an 8:30 a.m. meeting Tuesday at the Nye County Courthouse at 101 Radar Road in Tonopah.

It will be the first county commission meeting for incoming commissioners Andrew "Butch" Borasky and Peter Liakopoulos, newly elected for commissioner Districts 4 and 5 in Pahrump.

Commissioners will also consider augmenting the Nuclear Waste Repository Project Office oversight fund by $1.16 million.

Nye County would discontinue its participation in the Central Nevada Community Protection Working Group under another agenda item up for discussion.

The Nye County Sheriff's Department wants commissioners to obtain bids to upgrade security surveillance and monitoring equipment in the county detention centers.

A public hearing is scheduled at 10 a.m. on a bill amending procedures for creating a list of appraisers of county property for sale or lease.

Newly-elected District 36 Assemblyman Ed Goedhart is scheduled to talk to county commissioners about any concerns they wish to submit regarding the upcoming state legislative session at 1:30 p.m.

Comments are due on the projects to be submitted for the Community Development Block Grant program. The county is applying for funding for the extension of water lines to a proposed Beatty industrial park at the former Barrick Bullfrog Mine and the construction of improvements to the Gabbs sewer system.

The appointment of county liaisons to 22 committees is on the agenda. They include: the Nye County Senior Nutrition Program; Nevada Association of Counties; Pahrump Regional Planning Commission; Nye County Park and Recreation Committee; Economic Development Authority of Esmeralda and Nye counties; Nevada Public Agency Insurance Pool; Public Agency Compensation Trust; Regional Transportation Committee; a nuclear waste liaison; Tri-County working group; Capital Improvements Advisory Committee; Development Agreement Task Force; Nye County water issues; town boards; Nye County jails needs assessment; Local Emergency Planning Committee; Nevada Business Services; Southern Nevada Workforce Investment Board; Nye County School District issues; Public Utilities Commission and Quad-State County Government Coalition.

Commissioners will also appoint three members to the Tonopah library board of trustees.

Commissioners will vote on a $46,252 bid to repair the roof of the building at the Calvada Eye in Pahrump.

Four closed sessions are scheduled: two to consider labor or personnel issues, two to confer with legal counsel on potential or current litigation.

Golden Route Operations LLC, owned by the same company that owns the Pahrump Nugget Hotel and Casino, has a request to expand their business to Nye County before the Nye County Licensing and Liquor Board at 9 a.m.

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UPI
December 30, 2006

Analysis: U.S. nuke energy expands in 2007

By Ben Lando
UPI Energy Correspondent

WASHINGTON, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- The U.S. nuclear power industry ends 2006 optimistic as what has been dubbed a "nuclear renaissance" is on the horizon and applications for the first new nuclear plants in more than two decades are expected to be filed in 2007.

But the head of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is warning stagnant funding from Congress could slow the regulatory process and push back nuclear energy expansion.

Nuclear energy has survived the black eye of the 1986 Chernobyl disaster and the near incident at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island in 1979 (although the United States stopped while the rest of the world continued building nuclear plants).

Only 103 reactors are online in the United States, less than a quarter of global nuclear power reactors, delivering 20 percent of the U.S. energy supply.

The last U.S. reactor was licensed in 1979 and the last one came online in 1996.

But technology has improved, industry officials say, making nuclear energy safer and more economically viable.

There have been no licenses for new nuclear plants submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission yet, let alone approved or reactors built and turned on.

Dale Klein, chairman of the NRC, expects five to seven license applications next year, another eight in 2008 and more than 30 within the coming half decade.

"It really is a fun time to be in nuclear power and it is somewhat of a nuclear renaissance," said George Vanderheyden, senior vice president of Constellation Generation Group and president of UniStar Nuclear, a joint venture between Constellation Energy and Areva Inc.

He added: "2006 was a tremendously interesting year."

And it all kicked off the year before, when President Bush signed the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which included three provisions aimed at jumpstarting new nuclear in the country.

This includes federally backed insurance against regulatory process delays and indemnification from nuclear incident liability; tax credits; and federal loans for the first applications to traverse the NRC's new combined construction and license permitting process.

"There will be lots of challenges as we move forward with nuclear power," said Vanderheyden, "even though there's a lot of optimism building throughout the country today."

The nuclear sector lacks domestic manufacturers for nuclear plant parts and faces a shortage of qualified workers across the industry. There's also no final solution for nuclear waste being stored around the country, mostly at active plants.

But nuclear power is buoyed by many factors besides industrial evolution: the increased price and volatility of fossil fuels, especially natural gas which boomed during nuclear absence; and a new focus on global warming that some eye nuclear as a response to.

"We have a need for a lot of electricity," said Buzz Miller, senior vice president of nuclear development for Southern Nuclear Operating Company. Southern has filed an application for an early site permit to add two new reactors at the Vogtle Electric Generating Plant near Waynesboro, Ga., the most advanced of new reactor developments.

The U.S. Energy Department's data arm, the Energy Information Administration, estimates the nation's energy demand will increase by 1.1 percent a year through 2030. Nuclear energy will increase by .6 percent annually.

The EIA estimates that by 2020 an additional 9 gigawatts of nuclear capacity will be added to today's 100 gigawatts due to the Energy Policy Act provisions and another 3.5 gigawatts as a response to fossil fuel costs. If this model proves true, nuclear power's share will drop from the 20 percent it holds now.

"It's imperative that we press hard on nuclear to keep that same desired fuel mix to help level out the volatility from any one fuel at any one time," Miller said. But keeping the 20 percent share of the energy market needs to be nuclear's top priority, he said.

"When we demonstrate the ability to get new nuclear online, I think at that point people can start to make decisions about displacing other fuel."

It's unlikely a new nuclear plant will come online before 2015. That gives time for coal, another source of cheap, domestic energy, to get past a key barrier: that it is a major toxic polluter.

"Competition will be between coal and nuclear" to meet the expected increase in demand for baseload electricity, said Gary Hunt, president of Global Energy Advisors, an analyst division of Boulder, Colo.-based Global Energy Decisions.

With a regulatory process ready and waiting to evaluate and approve the new technology line of nuclear plants in the United States next year, the nuclear industry said in 2006 one issue could be a lagging detractor: stagnation on a nuclear waste resolution.

A sole repository planned for inside Nevada's Yucca Mountain seems dead with Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., becoming Senate Majority Leader. Other options include temporary storage or permanent storage elsewhere, including at the nuclear plants themselves.

"If we don't have an effective way of disposing the waste, nuclear potential decreases," Hunt said.

Congress couldn't agree on a budget for the NRC, among other spending plans, before wrapping up this year. It passed a Continuing Resolution keeping funding at 2006 levels, at least until mid-February.

Earlier this month Klein, chairman of the NRC, said that could result in a 12 percent overall funding cut.

"A 12 percent reduction for a year long Continuing Resolution would definitely impact our business," he said.

He said the commission is looking at various operating scenarios based on the funding it receives, though the NRC will "not reduce oversight or requirements for existing fleets."

Most at risk of slowing, though not stopping, is the process for new license applications, renewals of existing licenses and power uprates, and hiring the needed additional employees.

"If the review process takes longer, the time before electrons flow from the plants takes longer," Klein said, which could have a ripple logjam effect years down the road.

--(Comments to energy@upi.com)

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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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