Yucca Mountain News Clips
Thursday, March 8, 2007
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
March 08, 2007
Measure would speed licensing
Nevadans counter Yucca Mountain bill
By Tony Batt
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Shortly after the Department of Energy resurrected legislation Tuesday to speed the licensing of a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada's senators countered with their own bill to keep the waste at reactors where it is produced.
As he announced the reintroduction of a new "fix Yucca Mountain" bill, the project's leader acknowledged that much of the work on a repository license application is being redone.
"I don't have an exact number, but I'm betting it's at least 60 percent of the work we're doing this year ... we are redoing work that's been done before," said Ward Sproat, director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management.
Sproat blamed the need for the work on "management behaviors" creating a "willingness to put up with less than adequate quality; willingness to -- when issues are raised -- just let them sit, hope they go away."
A new management team is working on the license application, which should be submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by June 30, 2008, Sproat said.
But Sproat said the goal of opening a Yucca Mountain repository by 2017 will slip if Congress does not approve the department's bill.
It would do the following:
• Give the department greater access to the nuclear waste fund, which totals about $19.5 billion, Sproat said.
• Permanently withdraw from public use the land at and surrounding Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
• Remove the storage limit of 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain.
Unless the storage limit is removed, Sproat said, he will have to ask Congress next year to approve a second nuclear waste repository to hold spent fuel that will be generated by the nation's nuclear power reactors and by additional plants that are on the drawing board.
Congress approved $100 million less for Yucca Mountain this year than the Bush administration requested, Sproat said.
The lower figure will not affect the license application, but it will delay engineering on a rail line to the repository.
The Environmental Protection Agency's standards for radiation exposure from the repository are expected soon. But when the standards are released, Sproat expects another lawsuit, which will last "three or four years."
Within the next three weeks, Sproat said he hopes to release figures on the total construction costs of the Yucca Mountain project.
Nevada senators, who have battled the Energy Department over Yucca Mountain, unveiled their counter-measure later in the day. It would make the federal government responsible for monitoring the nuclear waste at reactor sites across the country.
Sens. John Ensign, R-Nev., and Harry Reid, D-Nev., dismissed the Bush administration's Yucca Mountain bill.
Ensign said the bill is "dead on arrival," and Reid described its chances as "pretty slim."
Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., who is running for president and has an eye on winning Nevada's early Democratic caucus, also weighed in with a statement, which described the measure as "misguided policy."
Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., called the bill "a last-ditch effort to try and bring this project back from the brink of total collapse."
Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., said he was puzzled by the bill because the Yucca Mountain project "has been broken from its inception."
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Reno Gazette-Journal
March 08, 2007
Letter: Dangerous chemicals already pass by cities
Thank you for your absurd article on the proposed transportation of nuclear waste through Reno ["Reno-Sparks Yucca route still in play," Feb. 28].
Do your writers (or the "transportation adviser" you quoted) ever think about what is going through Reno now? Would you rather have solid waste that has a very long safety record, or liquids like propane, ethanol, chlorine or ammonia that pass through Reno nearly every day? Those hazardous liquids have all caused serious incidents in the past. Which poses a greater risk, or greater threat to property values? Where did the "transportation adviser" get his estimate of potential valuation loss?
If I were standing next to a derailed cask of nuclear waste, I would just slowly walk away in perfect safety. If I were next to a derailed propane car, I would likely die. Let's be rational about nuclear waste.
Stuart Feigin
Reno
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Las Vegas SUN
March 08, 2007
Jon Ralston on how a planned nuke dump will affect the presidential wannabes
For a dead project, Yucca Mountain sure has lots of life.
Or so it would seem from this week's developments, with the Department of Energy announcing new legislation designed to revivify the nuclear waste dump and the congressional delegation essentially responding that the DOE is propping up a corpse. So is this the administration's version of "Weekend With Bernie" or should the delegation be worried that this sequel, like the "Friday the 13th" series, is far from the last?
Although I am convinced most Nevadans hardly think about the repository anymore, with all the peregrinations the project has traveled since "Screw Nevada I" two decades ago, I find it interesting this announcement comes one day after a leading contender for the GOP nomination, Arizona Sen. John McCain, expressed unabashed support for Yucca Mountain. And the impact on the presidential race in Nevada - perhaps on both sides as some Democratic hopefuls have mixed records at best - cannot be ignored, especially if the contest is relatively close here.
The DOE's new bill is an exemplar of overkill - perhaps appropriate for a project presumed dead. Calling Yucca Mountain "critical to the nation's current and future energy and national security needs," Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman unfurled the legislation that would eliminate a current cap on waste, accelerate the Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing procedures and in Orwellian DOEspeak "consolidate duplicative environmental reviews."
Time for a whole new round of fornicating metaphors, my dear delegation. Or you could just attack the Bush administration and declare Yucca Mountain dead - again.
Fulminateth Sen. Harry Reid: "This is just the department's latest attempt to breathe life into this dying beast and it will fail. As Senate majority leader I will continue to leverage my leadership position to prevent the dump from ever being built."
Decryeth Rep. Shelley Berkley: "The Bush administration has renewed its attack on Nevada, and their goal is simple: Open Yucca Mountain at any cost."
Later Tuesday, Reid and Sen. John Ensign announced a bill to obviate the need for the dump with on-site storage. See, it's dead.
Reid's use of the word "leverage" is interesting and should be determinative as to Yucca's fate - while he is majority leader, that is. And the irony there is that Ensign, as head of the GOP Senate committee, is duty-bound to unseat his fellow Nevadan and put someone in control who is more likely to keep Yucca Mountain alive.
Even a GOP leader of the Senate - and, less likely, one in the House - would be somewhat irrelevant if a president were elected who was opposed to the project. All of the candidates visiting our very important state will claim to be strong on the issue, but their words will mostly be hollow.
And McCain's interviews over the weekend in Utah will be even more difficult than retreating from his Iraq position. The Deseret News ran a piece headlined, "McCain tells Utahns he backs nuclear storage" and recounted how the senator embarrassed Gov. Jon Huntsman, a dump opponent, by mocking transportation issues.
"Oh, you have to travel through states ... I am for Yucca Mountain. I'm for storage facilities. It's a lot better than sitting outside power plants all over America," McCain told the newspaper, then added, "I don't mean to be sarcastic. I apologize. But I believe we can transport waste safely."
No need to apologize until you get here, Senator. Maybe Nevadans don't care too much about the dump issue anymore. But that kind of enthusiasm for the project can't be helpful here in our very important state. I wouldn't be surprised to see Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney try to exploit those remarks when they visit.
On the Democratic side, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson has portrayed himself as a friend of the state on Yucca. But as DOE secretary, he did nothing to stop the project and also dismissed transportation concerns. John Edwards has voted for the project, too, but Reid got his mind right later in his Senate term. Contrast that with Sen. Hillary Clinton, who saw an opportunity and jumped on Tuesday's developments to reiterate how she has "long opposed" the dump.
This illustrates the point that is all too obvious despite all the funereal pronouncements by Reid, Berkley, et al. Yucca Mountain is not dead and will not be buried until an alternative is approved by Congress and the president.
The DOE knows that and hence breathed new life into the project this week.
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NEI
March 08, 2007
Nuclear Notes
Nuclear Industry Welcomes Introduction Of Legislation to Manage Used Nuclear Fuel
The following is a statement by NEI Senior Vice President for Governmental Affairs, Alex Flint regarding the U.S. DOE's submission to Congress yesterday of the “Nuclear Fuel Management and Disposal Act”:
“The nuclear energy industry is pleased that the Bush Administration has sent legislation to Congress to facilitate implementation of the federal government’s used nuclear fuel management program. We view this legislation as additional evidence that the administration continues its support for nuclear energy as an essential part of a diverse energy portfolio for our nation.
“This legislation addresses one of the three key foundational pieces of the integrated used fuel management strategy that the industry has embraced to protect the environment in an era of expanded use of nuclear energy. In addition to the planned Yucca Mountain disposal facility that is the focus of this legislation, the industry advocates research and development and demonstration projects to recycle nuclear fuel, along with interim storage of used nuclear fuel until commercial-scale recycling technologies or permanent disposal – or both – are available.
“As Congress considers this legislation, the Department of Energy should continue to take the steps necessary to submit a license application for the repository to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by June 2008. Timely submittal of the application does not hinge upon legislative action.
“The nuclear energy industry will work with the administration and Congress to ensure that the federal obligation to remove used nuclear fuel from reactor sites is met as soon as possible. For more than 20 years, electricity customers have paid funds through their monthly electricity bills into the federal Nuclear Waste Fund specifically for the development of a geologic repository for used nuclear fuel. This legislation will help the government meet its obligation to the American people while being a good environmental steward.”
Dow Jones Newswires
Update: DOE: Funds For Yucca Nuclear Waste Site Insufficient
WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- Current funding levels from the U.S. Congress are insufficient to meet the mounting costs of building the planned Yucca Mountain nuclear waste depository in Nevada, a senior Department of Energy official told a Senate panel Wednesday.
"Funding at current levels in future years will not be adequate to support design and the necessary concurrent capital purchases for repository construction, the transportation infrastructure, and the transportation and disposal casks," Director for Civilian Radioactive Waste Management Edward Sproat told the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water.
"Sustained funding well above the current and historic levels will be required if the repository to be built," Sproat said.
Congress approved $444.5 million for fiscal year 2007, $100 million less than the DOE requested.
Lack of funding - with rising expected costs - is likely to have an impact on the scheduled opening date of 2017, Sproat said. While not critical to the program in FY2008, "it will have serious consequences in FY2009 and beyond," the director said.
He also said that although the department was evaluating the impact of the lower-than-expected funding levels for this year, "it is likely but not yet certain that we will not be able to meet our best achievable schedule for opening the repository by March 2017," with at least a one-year slip likely.
Sproat recommended to the committee that Congress allow the DOE access to interest from the $19.5 billion Nuclear Waste Fund as discretionary funding. It currently doesn't have this access.
He later told reporters that there was sufficient funding from the interest from the fund - if Congress approved DOE access - to pay for construction for all but four to five years of peak construction activity.
The fund was created to pay for a nuclear waste depository. Generators of high-level nuclear waste must pay a fee into the fund for every kilowatt hour of generation.
Ranking committee member Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., said he thought the proposal to give the DOE access to the interest from the fund was worth consideration.
Sproat said the department should meet the schedule to submit an application for the Yucca Mountain project by mid-2008.
He said that for every year of delayed opening of the Yucca Mountain depository beyond 2017, it would increase potential liabilities to contract holders who have paid into the Nuclear Waste Fund by around $500 million. That is in addition to the estimated current liability of around $7 billion because the department didn't begin the removal of spent nuclear fuel in 1998.
In February, U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman said costs for the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository are likely to rise because of ongoing litigation and other delays in getting the program approved.
Costs for construction of the facilities, including the transportation infrastructure, will reach $20 billion alone, up from the previously estimated $ 12-$13 billion, Bodman said. Furthermore, he said a previous estimate for an entire life-cycle cost of $58 billion is also considered outdated. The DOE said it would be able to produce a more accurate cost estimate once an application for the Yucca Mountain project is approved.
Another top DOE official also said last month thatthe facility wouldn't likely become operational until around 2020, three years later than the planned 2017 opening date.
But approval of the repository is in doubt because of objections from a growing grass-roots campaign, environmentalists and lawmakers.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is a key critic of the administration's plan to open the permanent waste site about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. He and other federal lawmakers have promised to block the plan.
Subcommittee Chairman Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., said he hadn't yet decided whether he would support the Yucca Mountain project or seek to block it as Reid plans. "It's too early," he said, "these are really significant choices we have to make."
Sproat also told the committee and reporters at the hearing that the DOE was considering the Mina Corridor railroad route to the depository as a less expensive alternative to the Caliente Corridor.
He said the Mina route through a Native American reservation would be around $ 1 billion cheaper than the $2 billion Caliente route.
The Mina Corridor was originally favored as a shorter and more feasible route, but the Walker River Paiute tribe told the DOE in the 1990s they wouldn't allow access, said a DOE official who declined to be named. The Paiute tribe last year wrote a letter to the DOE saying they would allow a study of the route.
-By Ian Talley, Dow Jones Newswires; (202) 862-9285; ian.talley@dowjones.com
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Senator Harry Reid
March 06, 2007
Press Release of Senator Reid
Reid, Ensign Introduce Legislation to Fight Proposed Yucca Mountain Dump
Washington, DC — Today U.S. Senators Harry Reid and John Ensign of Nevada introduced bipartisan legislation that would require nuclear waste to be stored at the facilities where it is produced. The Federal Accountability for Nuclear Waste Storage Act of 2007 would eliminate the need for the proposed Yucca Mountain Project.
"As elected leaders, we have a moral responsibility to protect the thousands of Nevadans and millions of Americans that could be put in harm's way because of projects like proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump," said Reid. "This isn't just a Nevada issue, it's a national issue. It would be dangerous and irresponsible to ship the most dangerous substance known to man through cities and small towns, and past schools, hospitals and businesses so it could be buried 90 miles outside of Las Vegas. The next step forward is to secure nuclear waste in scientifically sound ways at the sites where it is produced. This legislation will accomplish that."
"This bill provides a safe, responsible, common sense way to dispose of nuclear waste," said Ensign. "We must look for long-term innovative solutions to recycle waste produced by nuclear power, and as we look for these solutions, we should not transport dangerous waste through cities and rural areas across our nation to Yucca Mountain."
The bill would also require the federal government to take responsibility for possession, stewardship, maintenance, and monitoring of the waste and increase safety at all nuclear power plants by providing funding for additional security to guard against accidents or terrorist attack.
Today the Department of Energy announced plans to revive the proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain and increase storage levels by an undisclosed amount, despite strong opposition from Nevada's congressional delegation and a myriad of scientific, safety and technical problems.
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Las Vegas SUN
March 07, 2007
DOE official praises Mina route for Yucca rail line
By Erica Werner
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Energy Department official who manages the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump project said Wednesday that the Mina Corridor route for shipping waste to the dump appears to be faster and cheaper to build than the Caliente Corridor.
"We see a significant opportunity for both schedule and dollar savings," Edward F. "Ward" Sproat, director of the Energy Department's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, told senators at a hearing of the Appropriations Committee's energy and water subcommittee.
Sproat told reporters after the hearing that preliminary assessments indicate the Mina route could be $1 billion cheaper and a year faster to build than the Caliente Corridor.
The north-south route dubbed the Mina Corridor was examined in the 1990s but shelved after the Walker River Paiute Indians refused access to their reservation. The tribe reconsidered last year.
In the past the Energy Department has said it favored plans to build a 319-mile east-west rail line from Caliente, near the Utah border, across rural Nevada to the nuclear dump site, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The so-called Caliente Corridor route could cost $2 billion.
The Mina route would be 280 miles long and include an existing rail line between the towns of Wabuska and Hawthorne.
New environmental reviews are under way and will include public hearings. It will be more than a year before the department reaches a final decision on the rail line, Sproat said.
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 work during site selection.
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Contra Costa Times
March 07, 2007
Bush administration wants to expand nuclear waste site
By Les Blumenthal
McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration has asked Congress for permission to expand its proposed nuclear-waste dump, saying the Nevada facility, as planned, would be unable to hold all the spent fuel stored at commercial reactors and the highly radioactive defense waste held at sites such as the Hanford nuclear reservation, the Savannah River Site and the Idaho National Laboratory.
If expanding the Yucca Mountain project isn't approved, the Energy Department probably would ask Congress next year for authority to build a second dump, said Edward Sproat III, who oversees the department's Office of Civilian Waste Management.
Though Congress authorized construction of the project, it's faced fierce opposition from Nevadans and some environmental groups, who think that Yucca Mountain couldn't safely store the waste for thousands of years. But Congress has continued to fund the repository amid pressure from utilities that are anxious about the waste accumulating at their reactor sites.
There's a statutory 77,000 metric ton cap (84,877 short tons) on how much nuclear waste can be stored at Yucca Mountain, about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
"If it (the cap) isn't raised, it won't have the capacity to take all the defense and civilian waste," Sproat said.
The administration also wants to tap the $19.5 billion Nuclear Waste Fund to start paying the construction costs for Yucca Mountain. The fund, financed by a fee on the electricity that nuclear power plants generate, was intended to pay for the facility. But because of congressional budget rules, the Energy Department has had to seek an annual appropriation from Congress to pay for the nuclear waste repository, which is scheduled to open in 2017.
The administration's proposals, delivered Tuesday to Congress, are similar to proposals made last year.
Yucca Mountain initially was to open in 1998. Because of the delays, utilities that operate commercial nuclear-power plants have been forced to store their spent fuel on site even as they pay into the Nuclear Waste Fund.
Sproat said the federal government would owe the utilities about $7 billion in damages because of delays at Yucca Mountain.
"This liability can't be paid by ratepayers," Sproat said at a briefing Tuesday sponsored by The Energy Daily, a trade publication. "It's the responsibility of U.S. taxpayers. This is a real financial driver to push this program forward."
On Capitol Hill, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., called the administration's proposal dead on arrival.
"This is just the department's latest attempt to breathe life into this dying beast and it will fail," Reed said in a statement Tuesday. "As Senate majority leader I will continue to leverage my leadership position to prevent the dump from ever being built."
Reid and Nevada's other senator, Republican John Ensign, have introduced legislation that would require nuclear waste to be stored at the facilities where it's produced.
"The administration is firmly committed to moving forward with Yucca," Sproat said Tuesday. "This is not an all or nothing bill. We want to continue the debate and dialogue" with Congress.
As currently planned, Sproat said, about 20 percent of the waste stored at Yucca Mountain would be generated from producing the nation's nuclear arsenal. Much of the waste is stored at the Hanford reservation in central Washington state, the Savannah River Site near Aiken, S.C., and the Idaho National Laboratory near Idaho Falls.
Preliminary design studies showed that Yucca Mountain could handle 120,000 metric tons (132,277 short tons) of waste, but Sproat said it would be up to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to determine the repository's capacity. The Energy Department is expected to ask the NRC for a license for Yucca Mountain in summer 2008.
If Congress blocked Yucca Mountain, Sproat said, lawmakers must determine what would become of the nuclear waste.
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New York Times
March 07, 2007
U.S. to Owe Billions for Delays in Nuclear Dump, Official Says
By Matthew L. Wald
WASHINGTON, March 6 — The federal government will owe $7 billion in damages for delays in opening a nuclear waste dump if the repository opens in 2017 — the earliest date now possible — and any further delay will raise the price half a billion dollars a year, the head of the radioactive waste program said Tuesday.
The money would reimburse current and former nuclear plant operators who signed contracts under which the federal government agreed to begin accepting their wastes in 1998.
The official, Edward F. Sproat III, director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, said progress toward opening a waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., near Las Vegas, had been slowed by lack of money, despite a $19.5 billion fund financed by a fee on each kilowatt-hour of electricity generated by reactors.
He said the administration would ask Congress on Wednesday for easier access to the money. But he also acknowledged that the schedule had been hurt by problems in his office and with its contractors; 60 percent of the work his office is doing this year involves reanalyzing data that was rejected earlier because of signs of fraud.
The administration will also request that the site be permitted to store more than the 70,000 metric tons originally set by Congress. That limit was set with the idea that the Energy Department would look for a second site, but it has made small progress toward opening the first one.
Mr. Sproat spoke at a breakfast sponsored by The Energy Daily, a trade publication, and Areva, a reactor vendor.
The nuclear waste issue has become more acute because for the first time since the 1970s, companies want to build new reactors, according to Mr. Sproat and others. But Mr. Sproat said investors would not lend money for construction unless the Energy Department resumed offering contracts to the utilities for waste disposal.
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UPI
March 07, 2007
Nev. senators introduce No Yucca bill
WASHINGTON, March 7 (UPI) -- Nevada's two U.S. senators have introduced legislation keeping nuclear waste where it is produced, a bill that could stop the Yucca Mountain Project.
The Federal Accountability for Nuclear Waste Storage Act of 2007 was introduced Tuesday by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, and Sen. John Ensign, a Republican.
Also Tuesday, the U.S. Energy Department sent legislation to Congress to move the Yucca Mountain Project forward; the same bill was stalled last year.
"As elected leaders, we have a moral responsibility to protect the thousands of Nevadans and millions of Americans that could be put in harm's way because of projects like proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump," Reid said in a statement.
Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, has been designated as the repository for nuclear waste created by U.S. nuclear plants and weapons. But the program has been set back by scientific controversy, opposition from Congress, the Nevada government and anti-Yucca groups, as well as funding cuts orchestrated by Reid.
"The next step forward is to secure nuclear waste in scientifically sound ways at the sites where it is produced," he said.
Nuclear plants currently store it on-site and industry officials have said it is safe.
The federal government has the task of taking possession of nuclear waste and the bill would force the government to do so but not send it to the Nevada mountain. Instead the government would operate on-site storage facilities, including safety and security of the spent fuel.
"We must look for long-term innovative solutions to recycle waste produced by nuclear power, and as we look for these solutions, we should not transport dangerous waste through cities and rural areas across our nation to Yucca Mountain," Ensign said.
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Platts
March 07, 2007
Waste storage plan not legal without US NRC Yucca nod: Bodman
Washington (Platts)--6Mar2007
US Department of Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman Tuesday said that, under law, the agency cannot make plans to store nuclear waste at a centralized facility unless the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approves DOE's license application to build and operate the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada.
Testifying on DOE's fiscal-year 2008 budget request before the House Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee, Bodman said if NRC approves the license application, the department can then begin evaluating interim storage, even if construction of the Yucca Mountain site does not begin. He rebuffed, however, calls for a DOE interim storage plan, saying he was not legally authorized to craft such a plan before NRC approves the license application.
"I cannot propose anything under law," Bodman said. "Under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1992, I am precluded from having anything to do with interim storage until such time as I get the Yucca Mountain license."
The department plans to submit a license application to NRC in June 2008, but it faces strong opposition to building the repository and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Democrat-Nevada, has said he would block the proposal DOE sent to Congress to remove barriers to the repository. DOE resubmitted the proposal Tuesday after a virtually identical plan went nowhere in Congress last year.
Bodman said just getting NRC approval of the license application could jumpstart consideration of a plan to send the nation's waste to one or more central interim storage facilities. Waste currently is stored at 103 reactor sites in more than 30 states.
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Las Vegas SUN
March 07, 2007
Editorial: Another push for Yucca
Energy secretary tries once again to energize this justifiably dormant project
Another year, another push by the Energy Department to breathe life into Yucca Mountain.
Last year's push to regain congressional interest in this dormant project 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas went nowhere. We believe the new push, announced Tuesday by Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman, will meet the same fate.
It certainly should, as this year Congress is controlled by Democrats and opening Yucca Mountain as the burial site for the nation's high-level nuclear waste is largely a Republican dream. Also, the "new" legislative proposal is largely a rehash of last year's.
What's more, Harry Reid is now Senate majority leader. Reid, working with the rest of the state's congressional delegation, has always been able to stall this terribly unsafe project. In his new position he will be an even more formidable foe.
Once again the Energy Department's push to gain congressional acceptance of Yucca Mountain contains a veiled threat. Years ago, when a majority in Congress thought safety at Yucca Mountain was at least feasible, the amount of waste that could be buried there, if it ever received a federal license, was capped at 77,000 tons.
This year's Energy Department proposal, like last year's, seeks to have the cap removed. To scare Congress into acceptance of this notion, Energy Department officials are prepared say that if the cap remains, a second nuclear-waste dump will become necessary. The idea is to get members of Congress envisioning that second dump in their state, and voting to approve Yucca Mountain, sans cap, so as to spare their constituents the dangers so callously being foisted upon Nevada.
Years ago it was estimated that just to bury the 77,000 tons it would require round-the-clock transports to Yucca Mountain, by rail, barge and truck, for at least 24 years. If the cap is removed, the populations of Southern Nevada, and the more than 30 other states the waste would have to travel through, could look forward to lifetimes of deadly waste transports past their homes, schools and shopping centers.
We hope that's the image that members of Congress envision when this proposal comes before them. Yucca Mountain threatens to contaminate Nevada's soil, air and water, and presents the risk of deadly accidents throughout the country via its transportation routes.
Spent nuclear fuel from commercial power plants and high-level nuclear waste from Defense Department facilities should remain where it is, safely sealed in casks right where it is produced.
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Nuclear Engineering
March 07, 2007
DoE to send Yucca Mountain bill to Congress
US energy secretary Samuel W. Bodman is to deliver a bill to Congress setting out the national commitment to the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository project.
Among the various provisions within the bill, the proposed legislation would withdraw permanently from public use the land at and surrounding the Yucca Mountain repository site in Nevada, and would facilitate Congress’s ability to provide adequate funding for the Yucca Mountain Project.
Permanent withdrawal is needed to meet a Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) licensing requirement for the Yucca Mountain repository, the DoE says, adding that funding reform is necessary to correct a technical budgetary problem that has acted as a disincentive to adequate funding.
The proposed legislation would also eliminate the current statutory 70,000 tonne cap on disposal capacity at Yucca Mountain, in order to allow maximum use of the mountain’s true technical capacity.
Also included are provisions for a more streamlined NRC licensing process, and for initiation of infrastructure activities, including safety and other upgrades and rail line construction, to enable earlier start-up of operations. Other provisions are designed to consolidate duplicative environmental reviews.
“The Yucca Mountain repository is critical to the nation’s current and future energy and national security needs, and I look forward to working with the Congress on developing a bill that can be passed by Congress and signed by the President,” said Bodman.
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World Nuclear News
March 07, 2007
New impetus from Yucca legislation
Legislation intended to 'facilitate' the development of the Yucca Mountain radioactive waste respository project has been submitted to the US Congress.
The US Department of Energy (DoE) submitted the legislation on 6 March. DoE chief Sam Bodman said: "This legislative proposal reflects the administration's strong commitment to advancing the development of the Yucca Mountain repository, while seeking to provide stability, clarity and predictability in moving the project forward."
In particular, the bill would:
* Permanently withdraw from public use the land at and surrounding the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada. This is a licensing requirement of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to help assure protection of public health and the environment.
* Remove the statutory limit of 70,000 t of disposal capacity of the eventual facility "in order to allow maximum use of the mountain's true technical capacity." Studies have concluded that a repository inside Yucca Mountain could hold over 132,000 t.
* "Facilitate Congress' ability to provide adequate funding" for the project. The DoE said: "Funding reform is necessary to correct a technical budgetary problem that has acted as a disincentive to adequate funding."
* Other language in the bill addresses provisions for a more streamlined licensing process and for initiation of infrastructure activities such as safety upgrades and rail line construction to enable a faster start-up of operation.
The bill is effectively a revised version of one that failed to make progress in 2006. Bodman said that the new bill would "continue the conversation" with opponents of Yucca Mountain.
As Nevada's Senator, Democratic majority leader, and head of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, Harry Reid has long been bitterly opposed to Yucca Mountain. He said the bill was "just the department's latest attempt to breathe life into this dying beast and it will fail." Calling Yucca a "dump" he said he would continue to oppose it.
Storage delay costs
The DoE was supposed to have taken over management of utilities' used nuclear fuel in 1998 for permanent storage, charging US nuclear utilities one-tenth of a cent for each kWh they produced since 1982 to cover the costs. However, it was only in 2002 that Yucca Mountain was confirmed as the final storage site, and current estimates putting completion in 2017 have been described as optimistic. As a result, utilities have stored their used nuclear fuel at more than 100 sites in 39 states at their own expense - effectively paying twice for used fuel storage.
Scores of utilities have launched legal action against DoE over the matter, with potential compensation payable by the department amounting to billions of dollars. On 6 March, Duke Energy has become the latest utility to reach a legal settlement with DoE over its extra costs. The company will receive an initial payment of £56 million from the US Treasury Judgement Fund for costs up to the end of July 2005, with additional amounts reimbursed annually for future storage costs.
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Deseret News
March 07, 2007
Yucca the only nuclear storage plan for now, energy officials say
By Suzanne Struglinski
Deseret Morning News
WASHINGTON — The Energy Department is not going to consider an alternative to storing nuclear waste in Nevada's Yucca Mountain until Congress allows it, the head of the project said Tuesday.
That leaves any interim storage plan off the table — at least for now — but Utah still could see nuclear waste shipments come across the state en route to Nevada if the storage site ever opens. The department might also need a second repository to store waste if Congress does not lift a cap on the mountain's capacity.
The Energy Department re-emphasized its commitment to the Yucca project Tuesday as it sent a bill to Congress containing legislative fixes, including an increase to the 77,000-ton limit on the amount of nuclear waste that can be stored there.
But as strongly as the department has vowed to move the project forward, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., a staunch Yucca opponent, has vowed to stop it in its tracks.
"The proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain is dying, and the Energy Department knows it," Reid said. "This is just the department's latest attempt to breathe life into this dying beast and it will fail. As Senate majority leader, I will continue to leverage my leadership position to prevent the dump from ever being built."
Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, came out against the Yucca Mountain project more than a year ago, after voting for it in the past. Utah's House delegation also is against the project, but Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, supports it.
The bill, which Congress evaluated last year but did not complete, would remove the 77,000-ton cap on the amount of waste the department could store inside Yucca, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The bill does not specify an amount of waste to be stored inside the mountain, but Edward F. "Ward" Sproat, director of the Energy Department's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, said without the increase he will have to go to Congress next year to recommend a second repository site.
Few states would want to host a nuclear waste dump — Nevada has been fighting Yucca for decades, and Utah fought against Private Fuel Storage's plans to store waste in Tooele County.
Sproat said he plans for a "congressional education process" to help encourage members to vote to lift the cap rather than see a proposed site end up in their state.
The proposed bill also would change how Congress funds the project, allowing the department to more efficiently use money placed into a special fund by nuclear power users to build the storage site.
Allocating the right amount of money is key to meeting the newest opening date of 2017 — almost two decades later than originally promised — Sproat said.
The delay in opening the project is what prompted nuclear power companies to join forces and form Private Fuel Storage, a private venture that aimed to store nuclear waste on the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation in Tooele County. The waste would be stored there until Yucca opened. The Interior Department canceled the company's lease with the tribe late last year and also did not approve a land conveyance the consortium needed to move waste to the site, essentially stopping the project. PFS said it is considering its legal options over the decisions.
Sproat said accessing the rate-payer money for the project is a "must-have" in the bill.
The longer the department waits to open the site and begin collecting used nuclear fuel from nuclear power companies, the more taxpayer money will have to go to pay court settlements. Because the department did not pick up the waste as promised in 1998 — and still hasn't — nuclear power companies have sued and some have settled with the government.
Sproat said the department estimates it will cost taxpayers about $7 billion in legal liability if Yucca doesn't open until 2017, and half a billion for every year after 2017.
"That number is large and growing so there is a real financial driver incentive to move this program forward," Sproat said.
Yucca has a series of obstacles to overcome, including opposition from Reid and the state of Nevada, before it can open. But current nuclear waste law prohibits the department from evaluating other options to store the waste.
Sproat said Congress would have to allow the department to look at a "plan B," but the department is not recommending one at this time.
--E-mail: suzanne@desnews.com
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Albuquerque Tribune
March 07, 2007
Nuclear time = money
Wire reports
The federal government will owe $7 billion in damages for delays in opening the nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, even if it opens in 2017 - the earliest date now possible - and any further delay will raise the price half a billion dollars a year, the head of the radioactive waste program said.
The money would reimburse plant operators who signed contracts in which the federal government agreed to begin accepting their wastes in 1998, said Edward Sproat, director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management.
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Rutland Herald
March 07, 2007
Nuclear is part of energy future
It should be clear to everyone reading your recent article about a Nuclear Regulatory Commission hearing on Vermont Yankee ("Lawmakers, NRC clash over Yankee waste," Feb. 28) that regardless of one's position on the continued operation of Vermont Yankee all Vermonters should be in favor of nuclear waste solutions. These include opening of the Yucca Mountain federal waste repository and the recycling and reprocessing of spent fuel.
Many countries in Europe and Asia have recycling programs that reduce the amount of spent fuel that must be stored, while generating additional energy without having to mine for more uranium.
Let's also keep the big picture in mind: Nuclear power mitigates the need for fossil fuels which produce large amounts of carbon emissions and lead to global warming. This is one of the most important issues that must be addressed and solved today.
Vermonters are lucky to have the cleanest electricity portfolio and the lowest carbon emissions per capita in the country, largely because of our use of nuclear and hydro. This is a record that Vermonters should be proud of and one that we must maintain in the years ahead.
While storage of spent fuel is an issue that must be addressed, Vermonters cannot afford to lose perspective on the big picture. A clean environment and healthy economy are the keys to our future prosperity, and nuclear power will be one of the ways we can ensure our state has clean and sufficient energy for the future.
Amanda Ibey
(Executive director,
Vermont Energy Partnership)
Montpelier
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DOE
March 6, 2007
DOE to Send Proposed Yucca Mountain Legislation to Congress
WASHINGTON, DC – Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman announced today he will send to the U.S. Congress a legislative proposal to enhance the nation’s ability to manage and dispose of commercial spent nuclear fuel and Defense high-level radioactive waste.
“This legislative proposal reflects the Administration’s strong commitment to advancing the development of the Yucca Mountain repository, while seeking to provide stability, clarity and predictability in moving the project forward,” Secretary Bodman said. “Nuclear power is a clean, reliable domestic source of energy that currently represents approximately 20 percent of the nation’s energy supply. The Yucca Mountain repository is critical to the nation’s current and future energy and national security needs, and I look forward to working with the Congress on developing a bill that can be passed by Congress and signed by the President.”
The proposed legislation would facilitate the licensing and construction of the geologic repository and lead to the safe, permanent disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste deep within the mountain. Among the various provisions, the proposed legislation would withdraw, permanently from public use, the land at and surrounding the Yucca Mountain repository site in Nevada, and would facilitate Congress’s ability to provide adequate funding for the Yucca Mountain Project. Permanent withdrawal is needed to meet a Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) licensing requirement for the Yucca Mountain repository and will help assure protection of public health and the environment. Funding reform is necessary to correct a technical budgetary problem that has acted as a disincentive to adequate funding.
The proposed legislation would also eliminate the current statutory 70,000 metric ton cap on disposal capacity at Yucca Mountain, in order to allow maximum use of the mountain’s true technical capacity. This provision would help provide the safe isolation of the nation’s entire commercial spent nuclear fuel inventory from existing reactors, including life extensions.
Also included are provisions for a more streamlined NRC licensing process, and for initiation of infrastructure activities, including safety and other upgrades and rail line construction, to enable earlier start-up of operations. Other provisions are designed to consolidate duplicative environmental reviews.
“We have a legal and moral obligation to get Yucca Mountain opened and operating,” Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management Director Ward Sproat said. “Currently 55,000 metric tons of commercial spent nuclear fuel and Defense high-level waste is being stored at more than 100 above-ground sites in 39 states, and that number grows by about 2,000 metric tons annually. By entombing it deep in Yucca Mountain – a safe and secure permanent geologic repository – we can ensure public safety for thousands of generations.”
Yucca Mountain was approved by the Congress and the President as the site for the nation’s first permanent spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste geologic repository in 2002.
Bodman Letter to Pelosi:
http://www.energy.gov/media/BodmanLetterToPelosi.pdf
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Senator Harry Reid
March 06, 2007
Press Release of Senator Reid
Reid Statement on the DOE's Plan to Revive Yucca Mountain
Washington, D.C. - U.S Senator Harry Reid of Nevada released the following statement in response to the Energy Department's announcement that it will introduce legislation to revive the proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain.
"The proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain is dying and the Energy Department knows it. This is just the Department's latest attempt to breathe life into this dying beast and it will fail. As Senate Majority Leader I will continue to leverage my leadership position to prevent the dump from ever being built.
"While Nevada is always my top priority, this is more than a Nevada issue, it is a national issue. The Energy Department cites a 'moral obligation' to build the dump, but it is highly immoral to put millions of people at risk by hauling more than 70,000 tons of the most dangerous substance known to man past America's schools, hospitals and businesses."
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Congresswoman Shelley Berkley
March 06, 2007
White House Renews Push for Fix "Yucca" Bill
Bush Administration Seeks Reintroduction of Anti-Nevada Nuke Waste Legislation
(March 6, 2007 -- Washington, D.C.) Congresswoman Shelley Berkley (D-NV) today swiftly denounced renewed efforts by the Bush Administration to gain Congressional approval for legislation designed to speed the opening of Yucca Mountain and to allow even larger amounts of nuclear waste to be dumped in Nevada.
"The Bush administration has renewed its attack on Nevada and their goal is simple: open Yucca Mountain at any cost. This proposal isn't about safety or science, it's about using political muscle to change the rules of the game in order to ensure that nuclear waste comes to Nevada," said Berkley.
"This is clearly a last ditch effort to try and bring this project back from the brink of total collapse, but make no mistake, Yucca Mountain's days are numbered. Like the project it is designed to resurrect, this bill is dead in the water. Working with my colleagues in the House and with Majority Leader Reid in the Senate, we will ensure this bill never sees the President's desk," said Berkley.
"In a nutshell, this legislation guts key safety and environmental rules, makes it harder for Nevadans to challenge Yucca Mountain, gives the green light to a water grab and increases the amount of deadly nuclear waste that can be buried 90 minutes outside Las Vegas," said Berkley. "Yucca Mountain has not been proven safe and there will be no way to keep thousands of shipments of nuclear waste secure as they travel across our roads and railways, and this legislative package ignores both these realities."
Among the changes included in the White House bill is a provision that seeks to eliminate the current restriction on the amount of waste that can be stored inside Yucca Mountain. Lifting this cap would enable more nuclear waste to be dumped in Nevada and would increase the number of waste shipments that would have to travel along America's roads and railways. Berkley is also concerned that it would pave the way for White House plans to allow nuclear waste from other nations to be shipped to Nevada for burial at Yucca Mountain, as part of the President's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) program.
"Right now there is a limit on the amount of waste that can be stored at Yucca Mountain, but if President Bush is successful, Nevada will become the world's nuclear garbage dump," said Berkley.
Another provision in the bill would make it easier for Congress to spend billions on dumping nuclear waste in Nevada, with little or no oversight to protect taxpayers.
"Billions of dollars have already been wasted on a hole in the Nevada desert and Yucca Mountain is no closer to opening today, than it was 20 years ago. Funding for this disaster waiting to happen does not deserve special treatment and Yucca Mountain should have to compete with our nation's need to fund homeland security, education, clean energy, healthcare, Social Security and the war in Iraq and Afghanistan," said Berkley, regarding provisions included in President Bush's bill that would give Yucca Mountain special budget treatment.
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Las Vegas SUN
March 06, 2007
Energy Department makes legislative push for Yucca nuclear dump
By Erica Werner
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Energy Department unveiled legislation Tuesday to spur construction of a national nuclear waste dump in Nevada and increase its capacity. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., immediately vowed to block the bill.
That could spell more problems for the troubled Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump, already years behind schedule. The Energy Department official who heads the project warned that without new funding that's part of the bill, a 2017 goal for opening the dump 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas could not be met.
"If we don't have that we are certainly not going to be able to maintain the 2017 date," said Edward F. "Ward" Sproat, director of the Energy Department's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management.
Sproat also said that if the capacity of Yucca Mountain isn't increased from the current limit of 77,000 tons, as the bill proposes, he would have to recommend to Congress next year that a second nuclear waste dump be built.
That would be a hard sell, as few states would want to host a nuclear waste dump. Sproat indicated that the prospect of a second nuclear waste dump could help to convince Congress of the need to move forward with Yucca Mountain and approve the department's legislation.
"It's part of what I would call the congressional education process," Sproat told reporters at a briefing organized by The Energy Daily.
The new bill is similar to legislation the Energy Department offered last year that didn't advance. The political environment is even tougher for the measure this year now that Reid, an ardent Yucca Mountain opponent, is in charge of the Senate.
"This is just the department's latest attempt to breathe life into this dying beast and it will fail," Reid said. "I will continue to leverage my leadership position to prevent the dump from ever being built."
The bill doesn't specify how much more than 77,000 tons of nuclear waste should be allowed in Yucca Mountain, though federal environmental impact studies have estimated the dump could safely hold at least 132,000 tons.
There's already more than 50,000 tons of nuclear waste piling up at nuclear power plants in 31 states with nowhere to go, something that's threatening taxpayers with mounting liability costs since the federal government was contractually obligated to begin storing nuclear utilities' waste starting in 1998.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
March 06, 2007
YUCCA MOUNTAIN: Agency to release records
Nevadans suspect DOE wants to avoid lawsuit
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- The Department of Energy is preparing to make public more than 2 million Yucca Mountain documents, a government attorney said Monday in defusing at least one fight with Nevada over the nuclear waste site.
When the documents are added to what has been posted to an electronic database, the department will have shared more than 3.3 million documents totaling 30 million pages, attorney Michael Shebelskie said at a Nuclear Regulatory Commission hearing.
The documents will be made available within 60 days, Shebelskie told a panel of three NRC administrative judges.
"We will have completed our review of those documents, and in the interest of making public disclosure sooner rather than later, we made that decision," Shebelskie said after the hearing.
Nevada officials and attorneys said that another reason might exist: to head off yet another lawsuit the state was building against the Yucca project.
"I don't think they are doing this because they are nice guys," said Bob Loux, director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects. "DOE began to believe we would have a claim."
The documents include science and engineering studies that the department plans to cite in its bid for an NRC license to store highly radioactive waste within the mountain ridge, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The documents have been formatted and loaded for the Yucca database, which is managed by the NRC technicians. Administrator Dan Graser said that once the department gives the OK, the documents could be posted in "less than an hour."
In November, then-Gov. Kenny Guinn charged that the agency was hoarding millions of documents, hiding them from Nevada consultants who would sift through them for flaws and ammunition against the Yucca effort.
Federal rules allow the agency to wait until the database is officially certified before making the documents available, which might not be until the end of 2007.
But Loux said the state was building a case that by waiting that long even if the documents were ready, the agency was depriving the state, Nevada counties, environmental groups and other parties of the right to examine them fully.
"As a result, we may have a claim in court that we were denied due process," Loux said.
Department spokesman Craig Stevens said Ward Sproat, Yucca project director, "committed last year to releasing documents in advance of certification."
Stevens said, "This early release is a result of that commitment.".
A team of Nevada attorneys was prepared to set the groundwork for a lawsuit at the NRC hearing on Monday. But they were blunted when Shebelskie announced the department was going to make the documents public within 60 days.
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UPI
March 06, 2007
New 'Fix Yucca' bill heading to Congress
WASHINGTON, March 6 (UPI) -- The U.S. Energy Department will resubmit legislation to Congress that failed last year, aimed at jump-starting a nuclear waste repository in Nevada.
Edward "Ward" Sproat, director of the department's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, told reporters at a briefing Tuesday the plan is intended to restart the discussion on the controversial project.
It's "not by any stretch of the imagination an all or nothing bill," Sproat said at the briefing, which was organized by The Energy Daily.
A repository to hold highly radioactive nuclear waste from U.S. energy and military programs was to open in 1998. Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, was chosen as that site. The department will submit an application to federal regulators by 2008, but its tentative schedule to open it by 2017 is far from guaranteed.
The "Fix Yucca" bill, as it's nicknamed, didn't move last Congress.
Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has vowed to defeat any attempt to open up the proposed repository.
"I can't tell you how it will happen," Sproat said of overcoming congressional legislation, but he's found "strong bipartisan support" from members he's talked to.
Sproat said key aspects of the legislation include changing how the Nuclear Waste Fund -- money ratepayers pay to open a repository -- is regulated and giving the department total control over Yucca Mountain land shared by the Nevada Test Site.
He also said if the 77,000 ton cap on storage isn't raised, a second repository would be needed. He wants the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission to decide how much can be stored there.
There is 54,000 tons of nuclear waste being stored at more than 30 sites around the country, with another 2,000 tons being produced annually.
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World Nuclear News
March 06, 2007
Bill introduced to lift Californian moratorium
A bill introduced in California's state legislature by Republican assembly member Chuck DeVore calls for the state's moratorium on the construction of new nuclear power plants to be lifted.
An existing law, introduced in 1976, prohibits the use of land in California for the construction of new nuclear power plants until the State Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission confirms the existence of "an approved and demonstrated technology or means for the disposal of high-level nuclear waste."
In 2006 California's Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, signed legislation requiring the state to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by 2020.
The bill introduced by DeVore would create the California Zero Carbon Dioxide Emission Electrical Generation Act of 2007. The bill says that "unless modern, clean, efficient, and safe commercial nuclear power is added to the mix," efforts to generate "significant amounts of zero carbon dioxide emitting electrical power at a cost that California consumers and industry can afford, and with the reliability they require, will be severely at risk."
DeVore said, "If we aim to reduce carbon dioxide without bankrupting the state and still have working class people afford power, the only way to have that done is modern nuclear power." He added, "It's time that we consider allowing the construction of new nuclear power plants, especially given that the state of the art has improved so far since the last ones were built."
According to DeVore, if a new nuclear power plant were ordered immediately, it would be more than ten years before it created any radioactive waste, by which time he expects a waste disposal site to be established. However, Edward Sproat, director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM), told a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) committee meeting in December 2006 that the Yucca Mountain repository will "most probably" not open before September 2020. Sproat said that the 2020 date takes into account possible program delays from lawsuits that are likely to be filed.
Although the bill is not expected to receive the necessary support in the current legislative session to make it into law, DeVore says he will reintroduce the bill in subsequent years.
There are currently four nuclear power reactors in operation in California: Diablo Canyon 1 and 2 (owned by Pacific Gas & Electric Co) and San Onofre 2 and 3 (owned by Southern California Edison Co and San Diego Gas & Electric Co). The plants provide some 16% of California's energy needs.
Further information
Chuck DeVore's official website:
http://www.chuckdevore.com/chuckdevore.html
WNA's California's Electricity information paper:
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf65.html
WNN: Nuclear power plant proposed for Fresno, California:
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/industry/141206Nuclear_power_plant_proposed_for_Fresno_California.shtml
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Nevada Appeal
March 04, 2007
The Democratic forum: What we learned
Guy W. Farmer
Special to the Appeal
Although I left town shortly after the Democratic presidential candidates' forum on Feb. 21, I've been thinking about that historic event ever since in an attempt to understand what really happened. What did we learn from our few hours in the national political spotlight? That's today's question.
The first thing we learned is that most of the candidates don't know much about Nevada or its capital city. For them, our state is usually "flyover country," but not any more since Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid persuaded his fellow Democrats to schedule presidential preference caucuses in Nevada for next January sandwiched between the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.
If the Feb. 21 event is any indication, the candidates have a lot to learn about the Silver State. During the forum, most of the contenders stuck to their standard stump speeches with relatively little attention to illegal immigration or the land and water issues that are so important to us - issues like the U.S. Bureau of Land Management's shaky stewardship of our vast public lands and/or the proposed nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain. In fact, non-candidate Reid supplied the most pertinent quote on the toxic dump when he declared the project "dead." Good riddance!
Apparently, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), who missed the forum, couldn't find Carson City on the map. He probably thinks Nevada consists of Las Vegas surrounded by millions of acres of sagebrush. So he chose to go to Hollywood, where he raised $1.5 million from the adoring gliteratti. I don't blame him but if he wants our votes, he'd better show up in Northern Nevada next time around.
I was at Comma Coffee on Feb. 20 to hear what Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden of Delaware had to say about the issues. He's very glib and very well informed and I liked most of what he said about foreign policy, except that he glossed over his participation in the ill-advised 1999 merger of my public diplomacy alma mater, the U.S. Information Agency (USIA), into the sprawling State Department.
As for "Queen" Hillary Clinton of New York, she seems to think she's entitled to the Democratic presidential nomination because she's a former First Lady. It doesn't work that way, however, and she seemed oddly out of place and somewhat uncomfortable in the presence of mere mortals. I'm sorry I wasn't there to witness the spectacle when her seven-car motorcade pulled up outside Comma Coffee, snarling traffic for blocks around. We don't do things like that in Carson City, but she's too regal to notice.
Some of my Democratic friends support photogenic ex-North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, but I think he's a big hypocrite. An extremely wealthy personal injury attorney, he's building a multi-million-dollar home in North Carolina while he continues to subject voters to his divisive "rich" vs. "poor" rhetoric. No thanks!
My favorite Democratic candidate is New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a former energy secretary and United Nations ambassador who understands the West and western issues. Although he won many new fans at the forum, he probably doesn't have a realistic shot at the nomination - vice president perhaps, but not the top job because Democrats aren't likely to nominate someone from a small western state. As President Clinton's energy secretary, Richardson offered lukewarm support to the Yucca Mountain project, but he's turned against it and now says he'd kill it as president.
As for the lesser-known candidates who came to Carson, former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack has already dropped out, Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut doesn't have a prayer, and no one has ever heard of former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel. Meanwhile, Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who believes in space aliens, provides much-needed comic relief.
In the end, I expect the battle for the Democratic nomination to come down to a mano-a-mano between senators Clinton and Obama with Edwards hanging in there as a dark-horse candidate. But keep an eye on the anti-global warming poster boy, former Vice President Al Gore, who's documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," won an Oscar last Sunday. Gore has the money and the organization to mount a credible challenge to Ms. Clinton or Obama if either of them falters down the stretch. Just one question: Who is Al Gore? He had trouble answering that question in 2000 and I think he's still confused about his core identity - whether he's a slick Washington politician or a good 'ol country boy from Tennessee.
My Appeal colleagues did a great job in covering the forum and hosting some of the candidates at an alternate viewing venue, where those in attendance could meet the contenders up close and personal. One final observation: Next time George Stephanopoulos of ABC News visits Nevada, he should learn how to pronounce the name of our state before opening his mouth.
--Guy W. Farmer, a semi-retired journalist and former U.S. diplomat, resides in Carson City.
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The State
March 04, 2007
Yucca issue presents dilemma for Democrats
Candidates can’t please Nevadans and S.C. residents at same time
By Wayne Washington
wwashington@thestate.com
Democratic candidates need more than quarters to play the political slot machine that is Nevada’s January 2008 caucus.
They need to oppose opening a nuclear waste repository in the state.
While pulling that lever might be a winner in Nevada, it’s a clunker in South Carolina. Palmetto State residents and nuclear power officials long have expected to send tons of high-level waste from South Carolina to a site near Las Vegas.
Next year’s Democratic caucus in far-away Nevada — the second of three critical, early tests of a candidate’s strength — increases the possibility that high-level nuclear waste currently being stored in South Carolina will remain here longer than planned.
Most Nevadans are strongly opposed to a plan to open a national repository for waste at Yucca Mountain, a hollowed-out ridge about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
No Democratic candidate seems eager to tell Nevada voters Yucca should serve as a national repository. All have either voted against it or voiced concerns about the project.
One candidate, former U.S. Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., recently changed his position on Yucca. He voted to move forward with the project five years ago but now says he opposes Yucca and believes waste should be stored at the facilities where it is produced.
Half of the Republican candidates — who don’t face caucus voters in Nevada — support opening Yucca and have voted to do so. A couple — former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney — would not say if they would open Yucca. The response of the Romney campaign to a pair of questions about Yucca and nuclear waste storage did not even include the word “Yucca.”
Without a national repository or some other means of handling high-level waste from spent fuel, hundreds of tons of waste, stored at various nuclear facilities in South Carolina, would remain here and would not be shipped to Yucca, as energy officials here have long expected.
Skeptics wonder if Yucca ever will open, noting the project has endured nearly 30 years of study and stalls.
Holding On
Nuclear facilities across the Palmetto State long have had to store their own waste. It is not known precisely how much is stored here. Officials have said the amounts are significant.
* Savannah River Site, the state’s most visible nuclear facility, has 36 million gallons of waste, said Julie Petersen, a spokeswoman for the Department of Energy.
* A Jenkinsville nuclear facility operated by South Carolina Electric & Gas produces about 26 tons of waste every 18 months, said Robert Yanity, a public affairs official at SCANA, SCE&G’s parent.
* Progress Energy’s nuclear plant in Hartsville has stored 194 metric tons of waste, according to Andy Cole, a communications specialist for the company.
* Officials at Duke Energy, which operates five nuclear facilities in York and Oconee counties, cited security concerns in not revealing how much waste is stored at their plants.
And as nuclear facilities here continue to run, they continue to produce more waste.
Some nuclear power companies want to expand their facilities to meet what they believe will be a growing demand for energy that does not contribute to global warming.
More nuclear power means more waste, however.
Nuclear officials say waste in South Carolina is stored safely and their facilities have the capacity to continue storing waste for the short term. But they won’t define “short term.”
A report last year from the U.S. Senate’s Committee on Environment and Public Works estimated waste stored at nuclear plants across the country can be safely held there for 100 years.
The problem is the federal government is breaking a promise to the nuclear industry and its bill-paying customers, said Progress spokesman Cole.
Power companies and customers have paid hundreds of millions of dollars in fees to the federal government as part of a 1982 agreement that called for the construction of a national repository. Progress Energy’s Hartsville plant has paid about $150 million over the past 25 years, Cole said.
Power companies have sued the federal government over its failure to open a site. Some have settled claims for millions. However, the Senate report, compiled when Republicans held a majority, estimated the government’s liability could reach $56 billion.
“It costs us a lot of money to store spent fuel, and that cost is passed on to our customers,” Cole said. “It’s like paying your mortgage and renting your house at the same time.”
Taking A Risk
Opponents of Yucca, however, question whether waste can be stored there safely.
“As Energy secretary, I saw no convincing scientific evidence that Yucca Mountain was an appropriate site for high-level nuclear waste,” said New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, the Democratic presidential candidate who was Energy Department secretary during the Clinton administration. “We learned rainwater travels from the surface down to the level where the waste would be stored much faster than anyone expected. That poses a risk that radiation could escape from Yucca Mountain and reach the aquifer below.”
While Richardson said he opposes Yucca, he did not kill the project when he was head of the Energy Department, a fact he will have to explain to Nevada voters.
Yucca is a front-burner issue in Nevada, one of the first things candidates are asked about when they campaign in the state.
Nuclear storage, though, does not generate the same passion in South Carolina.
Some government officials in the state want to continue accepting low-level waste because it brings in revenue. But they and others want the high-level waste moved to Yucca.
Nevadans remain fiercely opposed to having their state serve as, in their words, “the nation’s nuclear dumping ground.”
Dina Titus, minority leader of Nevada’s state senate, said Democratic presidential candidates have no chance of winning the Nevada caucus if they don’t oppose Yucca.
“You need to be able to do that for two reasons,” said Titus, a Democrat who has taught political science at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas for 30 years. “First, there’s popular opinion. Secondly, no leading political figures would endorse you if you don’t oppose Yucca Mountain.”
Titus said caucus voters tend to be the most active members of their party — and the most strongly opposed to Yucca.
Still, supporting Yucca is apparently not a deathblow in a statewide general election in Nevada.
Over the vociferous opposition of the state’s political leadership, President George W. Bush signed a law in 2002 designating Yucca as a national repository.
Two years later, he carried Nevada on his way to re-election.
Democrats looking to win Nevada’s caucus next year — and grab momentum toward their party’s nomination — must grapple with the challenge of keeping voters in Nevada and South Carolina happy when many want a different outcome on the same issue.
Edwards’ change of heart on the issue illustrates the difficulty of that challenge. He is counting on success in his native state’s primary, which follows Nevada by a week. Edwards has attempted to keep himself balanced on the political high wire stretching from the Palmetto State to Nevada.
“To the extent possible, the waste should be stored where it’s created and neither Nevada nor South Carolina should serve as the nation’s dumping grounds,” he said in a statement issued by his campaign. “Waste can be safely stored where it is produced while we develop a long-term solution that will not put anyone’s health or safety at risk.”
Reach senior writer Wayne Washington at (803) 771-8385.
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The State
March 04, 2007
Yucca ... Or not?
Yucca Mountain is a hollowed-out ridge 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. It has been studied for decades as a potential national repository for nuclear waste produced in the United States. A look at some of the arguments for and against the project.
Pro-Yucca
Safer location. Some scientific studies show waste can be stored safely at Yucca for 10,000 years.
Money already spent. The federal government already has spent $8 billion on Yucca.
In one place. Single repository would be easier to secure.
Best suited. Increased demand for nuclear power boosts need for larger centralized facility.
Promises made. Nuclear power companies and electric customers have paid hundreds of millions to the federal government for a repository. The companies have sued the government for its failure to open a site. The estimated liability of the federal government — taxpayers — is $56 billion.
Anti-Yucca
Transportation issues. Moving waste to Yucca could endanger millions of people along the routes.
Not needed. Other storage methods already in use can safely store waste for at least 100 years.
Bad location. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions or underground magma damage near Yucca could release waste into the atmosphere.
No guarantee. Some scientific research raises concerns about whether waste can remain stored safely at Yucca.
Locals don’t want it. Storing waste at Yucca would be contrary to the wishes of Nevada residents.
SOURCES: U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works (Republican majority staff report), March 2006; Web site of U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.; congressional testimony of Allison MacFarlane, research associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Program in Science, Technology and Society.
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The State
March 04, 2007
What’s next for Yucca Mountain?
After extensive debate, Congress passed and President Bush signed a law in 2002 selecting Yucca Mountain as the site for a national nuclear waste repository. Elected officials in Nevada, including new U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, have vowed to kill the project. Key dates under the current plans:
June 30, 2008: Department of Energy submits application for a license from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
Sept. 30, 2008: NRC considers application
Sept. 30, 2011: NRC to consider construction application
March 29, 2013: Department of Energy submits “receive and process” license to NRC
March 30, 2016: Construction completed for initial operations
Dec. 31, 2016: Start-up and pre-operations testing completed
March 31, 2017: Begin receiving waste
SOURCE: Department of Energy’s Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management
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The State
March 04, 2007
Where candidates stand
Democrats running for president — and hoping to impress voters in South Carolina and Nevada — face a tough choice: Support a national repository for nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain and anger Nevada residents, or oppose it and explain to South Carolinians what should be done with the high-level waste that was to be shipped to Nevada from the Palmetto State. Republican candidates don’t face that dilemma. There is no early GOP caucus in the Silver State before the S.C. primary.
Republicans
U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan.: Voted to move forward with Yucca.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani: Says only way Yucca should open is if it is environmentally and scientifically safe.
U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif.: Voted to move forward with Yucca.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee: Did not respond to requests for a position.
U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.: Voted to move forward with Yucca.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney: Declined to say whether Yucca should be opened or not.
Democrats
U.S. Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del.: Voted against moving forward with Yucca. Favors state and regional storage.
U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y.: Voted against moving forward with Yucca. Said U.S. should explore long-term solutions beyond Yucca.
U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn.: Voted against moving forward with Yucca. Did not respond to requests for a position on storage.
Former U.S. Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C.: Voted to move forward with Yucca. Recently changed position to suggest waste should be stored where it is produced.
U.S. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.: Has not had to vote on the project. Says he opposes moving waste to Yucca and wants to redirect spending to improving storage of waste at nuclear plant sites.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson: Voted against Yucca as congressman. Slowed but did not kill project when he was U.S. Energy secretary. Says he opposes Yucca and notes nuclear regulators have said waste is safe where it is.
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Deseret News
March 03, 2007
McCain tells Utahns he backs nuclear storage
Huntsman calls the senator 'Western' before the remark
By Lisa Riley Roche
Deseret Morning News
Arizona Sen. John McCain said Friday he supports high-level nuclear waste storage in Nevada — even though Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. praised McCain as the only GOP presidential candidate who understands Western issues.
Huntsman, along with most elected officials and voters in the West, opposes the proposed Yucca Mountain facility, citing concerns about radioactive waste being transported through Utah and other states on its way to the site.
But McCain mocked a question about the dangers of transporting nuclear waste while speaking with Utah reporters.
"Oh, you have to travel through states ... I am for Yucca Mountain. I'm for storage facilities. It's a lot better than sitting outside power plants all over America," he said, then added, "I don't mean to be sarcastic. I apologize. But I believe we can transport waste safely."
McCain said other countries including France have shown nuclear power can be generated "safely, economically and their greenhouse gas emissions are dramatically reduced. I worry a lot more about climate change than I do about transporting nuclear waste."
Huntsman introduced McCain at the mid-morning press conference held at the Grand America Hotel as the "quintessentially Western candidate ... he understands our issues and our values and that's very, very important."
Afterward, Huntsman acknowledged he disagrees with McCain on transporting nuclear waste. "When it goes through your back yard I would probably reflect the concern that a lot of people have," the governor said.
Huntsman is supporting McCain's presidential bid despite the popularity in Utah of another GOP candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who headed the successful 2002 Winter Olympics and is a Mormon like the majority of the state's residents.
Utah's governor said McCain "has an unparalleled world view ... he understands how to put the pieces back together again." Still, Huntsman said, within the next year, "we're all going to get around whoever the Republican nominee is."
McCain's overnight visit came just over a week after Romney raised more than $1 million in Salt Lake City and St. George. The current frontrunner for the Republican nomination, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, is expected in the state soon.
Huntsman said the visits are a result of Utah's participation in the Western-states primary set for Feb. 5, 2008. Utah is participating at a cost of some $3.5 million, in the hopes of attracting campaign spending and candidate attention.
McCain called Utah "a battleground state among Republicans" but said he didn't like so many early primaries. Spacing out the contests gives the public more time to consider the candidates, he said, adding that now, "it's pretty much over by the beginning of February."
Huntsman was scheduled to appear with McCain Friday evening at a major fund-raiser in the Phoenix Convention Center that costs as much as $2,300 a person to attend.
McCain arrived in Utah Thursday morning and spent time with Huntsman before attending a fund-raiser at a private Federal Heights home where he raised more than $150,000.
Thursday evening, McCain headed to Deer Valley to address a group of executives from JPMorgan Chase, a global financial services firm. McCain held private meetings with a number of local supporters, reportedly collecting additional contributions.
The senator responded to recent reports that some of his supporters have made anonymous, critical comments about Romney's membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, calling such actions "despicable."
McCain said if that was indeed happening, he wanted to know who was responsible. "I would immediately condemn them. I would immediately make sure they had nothing to do with my campaign. It's disgraceful and dishonorable," he said.
Asked if he were trying to appeal to Mormon voters, McCain said he was trying to appeal to everybody "but not on the basis of religion, but on the basis of how I can best give them and their children a better future."
E-mail: lisa@desnews.com
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Salt Lake Tribune
March 03, 2007
McCain says his stance on war doesn't hurt presidential chances
By Matthew D. LaPlante
The Salt Lake Tribune
Presidential hopeful John McCain said in Salt Lake City today said he understands Iraq is "the dominant issue" in American politics today but he's not concerned that his prospects might be hurt by his calls for troop increases while Americans increasingly are demanding withdrawal.
"Any political ambition I might have is negligent compared to what has already been sacrificed and is being risked by young Americans," said the Arizona senator, who spent Thursday and Friday meeting with supporters and fundraising in Utah. "So any impact it might have on my political ambitions I'm not concerned about."
McCain said the consequences Photo Gallery
John McCain in Utah of losing in Iraq would be "chaos, genocide," and the ultimate return of American troops to the war torn nation. While expressing some skepticism over whether enough additional troops are being sent to quell violence in Iraq as part of a recently announced "surge," McCain said "I believe we can succeed. We have the right general. We have the right strategy."
In his half-hour meeting with reporters, McCain also:
" Said a draft was not necessary to increase the size of the military. "It's a market place out there and there's young people turning 18, 19, 20 years old and we offer them certain benefits and certain incentives, including appealing to their patriotism, to join the military and they'll join."
" Promised that, if elected president, he would seek the assistance of Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr., a former ambassador to Singapore who speaks fluent Mandarin. "A president of the United States has to go to China," McCain said. "It would be nice to have someone who knows what they're saying."
" Expressed support for more nuclear power and said he wasn't concerned about waste. "Yucca Mountain is good for 10,000 years," he said. "I like to think way in the future, but 10,000 is enough."
" Said he believed the Republican Party could retain the White House and regain power in Congress. "America is a right-of-center nation," he said. "I think the Democratic Party is a left-of-center party. I understand they attract many people and we Republicans lost our way and paid a price for it in the last election, but I think we can get back to the party and the principles of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan."
McCain's visit came as polls show him running behind former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani in polls of likely voters. A Gallup survey conducted Feb. 22-25 found Giuliani has the advantage in public perceptions of each man's chances of becoming president - particularly with Republicans.
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Lahontan Valley News
March 02, 2007
Letter: New Options Proposed for Yucca Mountain Site
Last night we probably all learned that the feds are now looking at a northern route(s) that will put nuclear waste rolling on rail through our back yards.
The first reaction is probably NIMBY, but let's consider a few things!
The nation NEEDS a single place to put this stuff in an era of terrorist bombers, etc.
Right now, this stuff is stored under questionable security conditions all over the nation in many locations that are too spread out to monitor and safeguard effectively.
The feds owe us on this one!
The federal government needs to pay us all for this, as we're not only doing the nation a favor, but we are assuming a certain amount of risk as well.
I have no doubt that each and every shipment would be under the highest security escorts, as well as moving about as fast as the trains in Fallon go!
The folks that worry about leaks and 100,000-year half lives are missing the point - probably in less than 20 years, the scientists will find a use for this stuff, and all of a sudden the nation will be awash in the world's hottest new commodity.
Just as Alaskans enjoy a fat dividend check each year from oil, so should each and every taxpaying Nevadan whose county is affected by either storage or transport of this stuff.
If bin Laden can be safely stored deep inside an Afghan mountain, perhaps other types of waste can be too!
Joseph L. Pettegrew
Churchill County
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Pahrump Valley Times
March 02, 2007
Yucca Rail
Rurals concerned about Mina route
Oversight Chief Not Pleased with Pace of Planning
By David Baker
Special to The PVT
CARSON CITY -- Nevada's rural counties are not happy with the proposed Mina alternative rail route to Yucca Mountain, and yesterday the director of the Esmeralda County Repository Oversight Program made their stance clear during a session of the Nevada Commission on Nuclear projects here.
Ed Mueller addressed the commission, chaired by Richard H. Bryan, and spoke out on behalf of Esmeralda, Nye, Mineral and Churchill counties and addressed the possible effects of the proposed Mina Rail Corridor alternative to the Caliente route.
"The announcement of the Mina rail alternative spur to serve the proposed Yucca Mountain project was largely unexpected," Mueller said. "Unlike the Caliente rail alternative and its many variations which have been studied for more than 20 years by the Department of Energy, the Mina Rail alternative has not undergone a similar scrutiny."
Mueller added, "Based on recent audits by the DOE Inspector General's office and guidance given by the DOE internal legal counsel, oversight funding has not been used for any type of impact assessment activities related to the Mina route.
"DOE is working under a fairly aggressive schedule to complete its required environmental analysis in time for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission license submittal not later than June 2008. As communities affected by this new proposal, we are working hard to understand the full compliment of potential impacts."
Several routes are detailed in a Bechtel rail corridor study. All originate at the same point and pass through the Walker Indian reservation to the greater Hawthorne area. The proposed rail spur will continue on to the Luning, Mina and Sodaville areas. It will then proceed southwest to Rhodes Salt Marsh, and Redlich Pass, before crossing into Esmeralda County.
The rail spur will proceed to Blair Junction, where a split in the Mina Spur is indicated. The first alternative proposed route will travel southwest across Highway 265 then to Clayton Valley, where it will end in Bonnie Claire Interface. The second possible route will be from Blair Junction southeast, crossing Highways 95 and 6 intersection, to Montezuma Valley, through to Goldfield and once again ending up at the Bonnie Claire switch yard before crossing into Nye County.
From Lida Junction the proposed spur will continue straight on to the Yucca Mountain Project.
Mueller, said in regards to the spur, "If a rail option is selected and ultimately constructed for the proposed Yucca Mountain Project, termination of such a line at the repository would provide limited secondary use." Muller continued, "As a practical matter, the prospects of a single purpose dead-end rail spur to Yucca Mountain only amplifies the negative elements associated with the project and the Mina Rail alternative."
According to the Bechtel study, numerous problems regarding endangered species may be involved in the rail route.
In addition, the Bechtel study says that any dry creek bed, dry lake and or naturally occurring wetlands could be filled in for the proposed rail bed. Multiple springs, groups of springs and or wells are less than a quarter of a mile from the proposed rail spur; some are as close as 500 feet from the rail line.
The study also address several right-of-way issues. One of which will be a 1,000 foot wide to either side of the proposed spur on BLM lands. Right-of-way widths across Native American lands will have to be determined with the Native Nations and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
"If a rail spur is to be built," Mueller said, "DOE needs to thoroughly examine and be open to the concept of shared (common carrier) rail use. Furthermore, a through going rail line to southern main lines, instead of a dead-end spur, can potentially provide some level of offsetting mitigation's to areas most impacted. A through-going rail line has the potential to eliminate waste shipments in the Las Vegas Valley."
In 2005 dollars, for 255 miles of proposed rail, the construction cost at a minimum would run $1,596,255,000, according to the Bechtel study, or for the second rail construction option of 256 miles, $1,585,790,000.
Mueller pointed out the limits of oversight.
"Our (oversight) ability to influence whether or not Yucca Mountain will be built and a rail line constructed is limited to non-existent. We do, however, have the responsibility to ensure transportation occurs in a safe manner and that the transportation mode has the potential to serve our respective county interests."
The study further cites a number of prehistoric sites in the Tonopah area, some which are eligible or potentially eligible for inclusion in the National Registry of Historical Places.
In addition, Steward's Western Shoshone Village, at the south edge of Oasis Mountain, the Beatty Wash Petroglyphs, and Black Cone, which has been identified on visits by ethnographers and Native Americans as a place of religious significance or power, could potentially be affected.
The Mina corridor passes near known historic graves including a Chinese grave and the historic cemetery at Millers town site.
"Historically," Mueller said, "Nevada's rural communities have shouldered the burden for the Department of Energy's activities while the positive elements have largely accrued to Nevada's urban communities. This appears to be the case with the Yucca Mountain project with the site being planned for Nye County, and Nevada's rural communities slated for the waste shipment routes.
"Until such time as the Nuclear Waste Policy Act is rescinded or the money stops flowing, Yucca Mountain is not going away. As rural counties potentially affected by an uncertain outcome, we will continue to pursue activities and outcomes that contribute to the health, safety and well being of our citizens with regard to this issue until it is resolved one way or another. To do any different would be irresponsible."
Anyone wishing to contact the Commission on Nuclear Projects for further information may email nwpo@nuc.state.nv.us or call (775)-687-3744.
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OpEdNews
March 02, 2007
New Nuclear Warheads for Bush
by Ron Fullwood
It was reported today that the Bush administration has decided to move forward with their plans to 'refurbish' the existing nuclear arsenal, designating the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California over the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico for the project if it happens to get the funding from the, so-far, reluctant Congress. The warheads are said to be destined for the nation's 'sea-based' nuclear weapons as part of the Trident submarine-launched ballistic missile system.
In September 2000, PNAC drafted a report entitled "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century." The conservative foundation- funded report was authored by Bill Kristol, John Bolton and others. The report called for: ". . . significant, separate allocation of forces and budgetary resources over the next two decades for missile defense," and claimed that, despite the "residue of investments first made in the mid- and late 1980s, over the past decade, the pace of innovation within the Pentagon had slowed measurably." Also that, "without the driving challenge of the Soviet military threat, efforts at innovation had lacked urgency."
The PNAC report asserted that "while long-range precision strikes will certainly play an increasingly large role in U.S. military operations, American forces must remain deployed abroad, in large numbers for decades and that U.S. forces will continue to operate many, if not most, of today's weapons systems for a decade or more." The PNAC document encouraged the military to "develop and deploy global missile defenses to defend the American homeland and American allies, and to provide a secure basis for U.S. power projection around the world."
The paper claimed that, "Potential rivals such as China were anxious to exploit these technologies broadly, while adversaries like Iran, Iraq and North Korea were rushing to develop ballistic missiles and nuclear weapons as a deterrent to American intervention in regions they sought to dominate. Also that, information and other new technologies – as well as widespread technological and weapons proliferation – were creating a 'dynamic' that might threaten America's ability to exercise its 'dominant' military power."
In reference to the nation's nuclear forces, the PNAC document asserted that, "In reconfiguring its nuclear force, the United States also must counteract the effects of the proliferation of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction that may soon allow lesser states to deter U.S. military action by threatening U.S. allies and the American homeland itself."
"The (Clinton) administration's stewardship of the nation's deterrent capability has been described by Congress as "erosion by design," the group chided. The authors further warned that, "U.S. nuclear force planning and related arms control policies must take account of a larger set of variables than in the past, including the growing number of small nuclear arsenals –from North Korea to Pakistan to, perhaps soon, Iran and Iraq – and a modernized and expanded Chinese nuclear force."
In addition, they counseled, "there may be a need to develop a new family of nuclear weapons designed to address new sets of military requirements, such as would be required in targeting the very deep underground, hardened bunkers that are being built by many of our potential adversaries."
The 2002 PNAC document is a mirrored synopsis of the Bush administration's foreign policy today. President Bush is projecting a domineering image of the United States around the world which has provoked lesser equipped countries to desperate, unconventional defenses; or resigned them to a humiliating surrender to our rape of their lands, their resources and their communities.
Bush intends for there to be more conquest - like in Iraq - as the United States exercises its military force around the world; our mandate, our justification, presumably inherent in the mere possession of our instruments of destruction.
Our folly is evident in the rejection of our ambitions by even the closest of our allies, as we reject all entreaties to moderate our manufactured mandate to conquer. Isolation is enveloping our nation like the warming of the atmosphere and the creeping melt of our planet's ancient glaciers. We are unleashing a new, unnecessary fear between the nations of the world as we dissolve decades of firm understandings about an America power which was to be guileless in its unassailable defenses. The falseness of our diplomacy is revealed in our scramble for 'useable', tactical nuclear missiles, new weapons systems, and our new justifications for their use.
The PNAC 'Rebuilding America' report was used after the Sept. 11th terrorist attacks to draft the 2002 document entitled "The National Security Strategy of the United States," which for the first time in the nation's history advocated "preemptive" attacks to prevent the emergence of opponents the administration considered a threat to its political and economic interests. It states that ". . . we will not hesitate to act alone, if necessary, to exercise our right of self-defense by acting preemptively against such terrorists, to prevent them from doing harm against our people and our country." And that, "To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively."
This military industry band of executives promoted the view, in and outside of the White House that, " must be prepared to stop rogue states and their terrorist clients before they are able to threaten or use weapons of mass destruction against the United States and our allies and friends. . . We must deter and defend against the threat before it is unleashed."
Their strategy asserts that "The United States has long maintained the option of preemptive actions to counter a sufficient threat to our national security. The greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction - and the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy's attack." So their plan is to attack whomever, whenever they feel our security is threatened, no matter if the nature and prevalence of the attack is uncertain. The biggest threat to the World community is the proliferation of WMDs here in the U.S., facilitated by a nest of former military-industrial executives (military-industrial warriors) and shareholders in the Defense department and throughout the Bush administration.
The Bush administration's nuclear program is a shell game with their ambitions hidden within Energy and Defense legislation, most under the guise of research. Reuters, in October 2003, reported that the Bush administration was proceeding with their plans to promote and push for the expansion of the nation's nuclear arsenal with the unveiling of an initiative produced by the 'Defense Science Board'. The supporting document, named the "Future Strategic Strike Force", outlines a reconfigured nuclear arsenal made up of smaller-scale missiles which could be targeted at smaller countries and other lower-scale targets. The report is a retreat from decades of understanding that these destructive weapons were to be used as a deterrent only; as a last resort.
Mohamed El Baradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, had said as early as 2004 that U.S. development of new nuclear weapons could hamper efforts to reach agreement with other countries who might want to expand their nuclear programs; like Iran and Pakistan, for example.
In September the Senate went along anyway with a White House push to reduce the preparation time required for nuclear testing in Nevada; clearing the way for a resumption of nuclear test explosions which have been banned since 1992. It seeks to cut the time it would take to restart testing nuclear weapons in the Nevada desert from three years to two years. The Bush administration wants the period cut to 18 months.
Congress plans to build the first permanent U.S. nuclear waste repository in the desert northwest of Las Vegas, scheduled to open in 2010 and would hold up to 77,000 tons of radioactive waste. The failed Energy bill that last emerged from Congress in 2004 would have provided $580 million for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste disposal project in 2004 - around $11 million less than Bush had requested but far above a $425 million limit earlier endorsed by the Senate.
The bill would have also provided $11 million for a new factory to make plutonium "pits" for the next generation of nuclear weapons. The last U.S. facility for manufacturing nuclear triggers closed in 1989. Democrats in Congress have been the slim thread which has held back funds for these pernicious nuclear initiatives.
President Bush signed into law a Defense bill for 2004 which included $9 billion in funding for research on the next generation of nuclear weaponry.
"It's an important signal we're sending," President Bush remarked at the signing of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2004, "because, you see, the war on terror is different than any war America has ever fought."
"Our enemies seek to inflict mass casualties, without fielding mass armies," he cautioned. "They hide in the shadows, and they're often hard to strike. The terrorists are cunning and ruthless and dangerous, as the world saw on September the 11th, 2001. Yet these killers are now facing the United States of America, and a great coalition of responsible nations, and this threat to civilization will be defeated."
However, this is a posture usually reserved for nation-states who initiate or sponsor terrorists. The devastating neighboring effect of a potential nuclear engagement would contaminate innocent millions with the resulting radioactive fallout, and would not deter individuals with no known base of operations. Yet, this administration, for the first time in our nation's history, contemplates using nuclear weapons on countries which themselves have no nuclear capability, or pose no nuclear threat.
Gen. Lee Butler, of the Strategic Air Command, along with former Air Force Secretary Thomas Reed, and Col. Michael Wheeler, made a report in 1991 which recommended the targeting of our nuclear weaponry at "every reasonable adversary around the globe." The report warned of nuclear weapons states which are likely to emerge." They were aided in their pursuit by, John Deutch, President Clinton's choice for Defense Secretary; Fred Iklé, former Deputy Defense Secretary, associated with Jonathan Pollard; future CIA Director R. James Woolsey; and Condoleezza Rice, who was on the National Security Council Staff, 1989-1991.
The new nuke report recommended that U.S. nuclear weapons be re-targeted, where U.S. forces faced conventional "impending annihilation ... at remote places around the globe," according to William M. Arkin and Robert S. Norris, in their criticism of the report in the April 1992 issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists ("Tiny Nukes").
At the same time, two Los Alamos (Lockheed) nuclear weapons scientists, Thomas Dowler and Joseph Howard, published an article in 1991 in the Strategic Review, titled "Countering the Threat of the Well-Armed Tyrant: A Modest Proposal for Smaller Nuclear Weapons." They argued that, "The existing U.S. nuclear arsenal had no deterrent effect on Saddam and is unlikely to deter a future tyrant."
They argued for "the development of new nuclear weapons of very low yields, with destructive power proportional to the risks we will face in the new world environment," and they specifically called for the development and deployment of "micro-nukes" (with explosive yield of 10 tons), "mini-nukes" (100 tons), and "tiny-nukes" (1 kiloton). Their justification for the smaller nuclear weapons was their contention that no President would authorize the use of the nuclear weapons in our present arsenal against Third World nations. "It is precisely this doubt that leads us to argue for the development of sub-kiloton weapons," they wrote.
In a White House document created in April 2000, "The United States of America Meeting its Commitment to Article VI of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons," the administration stated that, "as the United States reduces the numbers of its nuclear weapons, it is also transforming the means to build them." Over the past decade, the United States has dramatically changed the role and mission of its nuclear-weapon complex from weapon research, development, testing, and production to weapon dismantlement, conversion for commercial use, and stockpile stewardship.
That was his father's nuclear program. Bush Jr. wants bombs.
"The Bush administration has directed the military to prepare contingency plans to use nuclear weapons against at least seven countries, and to build new, smaller nuclear weapons for use in certain battlefield situations," according to a classified Pentagon report obtained by the Los Angeles Times. The 'secret' report, which was provided to Congress on Jan. 8, 2004 says the Pentagon needs to be prepared to use nuclear weapons against China, Russia, Iraq, North Korea, Syria, Iran and Libya. It says the weapons could be used in three types of situations: against targets able to withstand non-nuclear attack, in retaliation for attack with nuclear biological or chemical weapons, or in the event of 'surprising military developments.'
The new National Institute for Public Policy's report, January 2001 report on the "rationale and requirements" for U.S. nuclear forces, signed by then -Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, was being used by the U.S. Strategic Command in the preparation of a nuclear war plan. Three members of the study group that produced the NIPP report - National Security Council members Stephen Hadley (assistant to Condi Rice), Robert Joseph, and Stephen Cambone, a deputy undersecretary of defense for policy - were and, still are directly involved in implementing the Bush nuclear policy.
As reported by the World Policy Institute, the NIPP's report was used as the model for the Bush administration's Nuclear Posture Review, which advocated an expansion of the U.S. nuclear "hit list" and the development of a new generation of "usable," lower-yield nuclear weapons. Most observers do not believe, however, that the new weapons can be developed without abandoning the non-proliferation treaty and sparking a new and frightening worldwide nuclear arms race.
Stephen Hadley, presently Bush's National Security Assistant co-wrote a National institute for Public Policy paper portraying a nuclear bunker-buster bomb as an ideal weapon against the nuclear, chemical or biological weapons stockpiles of rouge nations such as Iraq. "Under certain circumstances," the report said, "very severe nuclear threats may be needed to deter any of these potential adversaries."
The Energy Department plans to assemble teams at three U.S. laboratories to begin constructing these new powerful "mini-nukes." Work on preliminary designs for the weapons known as "Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrators" would to begin first at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and finalized at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Today's report suggests that the Livermore laboratory will take on the bulk of the work if approved. Lawrence Livermore's scientists were slated to modify the existing B83, a hydrogen bomb designed for the B-1 bomber, while those at Los Alamos was to work on the B61, which already has been modified for earth-penetrating use.
Bechtel will benefit directly from efforts to expand testing and production of nuclear weapons. Bechtel is part of a partnership with Lockheed Martin that runs the Nevada Test Site for the U.S. Bechtel runs the Y-12 plant in Oak Ridge Tennessee, which makes critical components for nuclear warheads; and it is involved in the management of the Pantex nuclear weapons plant in Amarillo, Texas. Bechtel's $1 billion-plus in annual contracts for "atomic energy defense activities" are likely to grow substantially under the Bush nuclear plan. In 2002 Bechtel earned $11.6 billion. The company has built more than 40% of the United States' nuclear capacity and 50% of nuclear power plants in the developing world. That's 150 nuclear power plants.
Bechtel is also in charge of managing and cleaning up the toxic nuclear waste at the 52 reactors at the Idaho nuclear test site from our '50's nuclear program, as well as two million cubic feet of transuranic waste buried on the site, such as plutonium-covered shoes, gloves and other tools used at the nuclear lab in Rocky Flats.
Under the administration's original refurbishment proposal the Lockheed Y-12 National Security Complex would refurbish the secondary nuclear weapons; the Savannah River Tritium Facility would supply the gas transfer systems; Sandia National Laboratory would produce the neutron generators and certify all non nuclear components; Pantex plant would serve as the central point for all assembly and disassembly operations in support of the refurbishment work; Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore would continue to certify nuclear warhead design.
The weapons will be shipped to the Pantex plant to remove the uranium and any parts which can be used in new weapons; then the remaining parts will be shipped back to the plant for further processing.
The National Policy Reviews's concept of a "New Triad" emphasizes the importance of a "robust, responsive research and development, and industrial base." The "old" triad is the combination of land, sea, and air-based nuclear delivery vehicles that were developed during the Cold War to offset a nuclear attack on America. The New Triad calls for a "modern nuclear weapons complex," including planning for a Modern Pit Facility, and new tritium production to respond to what the administration claims are "new, unexpected, or emerging threats" to U.S. national security.
The NPR also mandates the development of what they term a "credible, realistic plan" for a "safe, secure, and reliable" stockpile. Already, $40-50 million has been budgeted for the project. According to the National Nuclear Security Admin.'s deputy administrator for defense programs, Everet Beckner, the designers would work to modify the weapons "to make them more powerful."
Beckner is a former Vice President of Lockheed. He served as the chief executive of Lockheed Martin's division that helped run the UK's Atomic Weapons Establishment, and is now charged with oversight of the maintenance, development, and production of U.S. nuclear warheads. Beckner testified to a Senate committee that, "It is clear that if the nation continues to maintain a nuclear arsenal it will need to make new nuclear pits at some point."
Most modern nuclear weapons depend on a plutonium pit as the "primary" that begins the chain reaction resulting in a thermonuclear explosion. A pit is a critical component of a nuclear weapon and functions as a trigger to allow a modern nuclear weapon to operate properly. The Department of Energy announced its intent to begin an examination of several possible sites for a Modern Pit Facility to produce plutonium pits for new and refurbished nuclear weapons in September 2002.
The United States is the only nuclear power without the capability to manufacture a plutonium pit. About three-fourths of the U.S. surplus plutonium is relatively pure in the form of so-called pits, which have been removed (and deactivated) from existing warheads. The remaining fourth of the surplus was in the process pipeline, mostly as plutonium residues, when processing was suddenly discontinued. The Soviet government processed all of its material to completion, so now all of the Russian surplus is in the form of pits or its weapon-form equivalent.
The Foster Panel Report, also known as the FY2000 Report to Congress of the Panel to Assess the Reliability, Safety, and Security of the United States Nuclear Stockpile, found that it could take 15 years from the point of developing a conceptual design for a pit facility until the final construction of the facility is completed. The report stated that, "If it is determined through the science-based Stockpile Stewardship Program that one or more of our existing pit designs is no longer reliable, and therefore is not certifiable, our nuclear stockpile would, in effect, be unilaterally downsized below a level which could maintain a strong nuclear deterrence."
That is the hook which supporters of an expanded nuclear program will use to justify an abrogation of the treaty ban, and begin their new-generation arms race. If they don't get their way - to fiddle with and refurbish the existing nukes - they will argue that deterrence is at risk; a preposterous notion, as our existing arsenal is more than enough to blow us all to Pluto.
Meanwhile, the DOE requested $22 million for the MPF in its Fiscal Year 2004 budget request and Congress funded the request in the House and Senate versions of the Defense Authorization bill. But, the House cut over half of the funding for the MPF citing the Bush administration's failure to issue revised stockpile requirements following the ratification of the Moscow Treaty.
Citing "classified analyses" the DOE claims it needs to have a new pit facility capable of producing 125-500 pits per year. The DOE's Notice of Intent for the MPF also states that one of the functions for the facility will be to have the ability to produce new design pits for new types of nuclear weapons. If new money is released, the nuclear weapons laboratories are expected to refurbish the casings on the existing nuclear B-61 and B-83 warheads, according to Energy Department official Beckner, who testified before a Senate committee in March. Beckner claims that both weapons have yields "substantially higher than five kilotons," so he has determined that the study will not violate a 1994 U.S. law prohibiting research on "low-yield" nuclear weapons.
A version of the B-61, modified to strike hardened and deeply buried targets, was added to the U.S. stockpile without nuclear testing in 1997. There is a serious question about the effectiveness of such a weapon on underground bunkers, and there is a concern that the neighboring effect of the radiation cloud would be devastating. A nuclear strike on North Korea, for example, could generate deadly radioactive fallout, poisoning nearby countries such as Japan or Australia.
It is immoral and wrong for this administration to hide their nuclear ambitions and proceed as if they had won the debate over the acceptability of nuclear power, when in fact no such public debate has occurred. The nuclear hawks are stepping out from behind their Trojan Horses of nuclear space travel and 'safe', new nuclear fuels and are revealing a frightening ambition to yoke the nation to a new legacy of imperialism. President Bush has decided that America's image around the globe is to be one of an oppressive nuclear bully bent on world domination.
We should oppose any money for new research or construction which would serve to refurbish or expand our existing supply of nuclear weaponry. On the other hand, we should support provisions which intend to dismantle such weaponry if the intention and result is for the disposal of these harmful weapons and their radioactive waste in a safe and effective manner.
In respect to all of these issues, I feel that all of the nuclear ambitions of the Bush administration, both in defense and with respect to energy production, are a foot in the door for those who would expand our existing nuclear program and would draw our nation into a new nuclear arm's race; exacerbating the problems of proliferation; threatening the safety and the health of workers, the community and the environment. They should be strongly resisted.
--Ron Fullwood, is an activist from Columbia, Md. and the author of the book 'Power of Mischief' : Military Industry Executives are Making Bush Policy and the Country is Paying the Price
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KVOA
March 02, 2007
McCain touts experience near end of Utah vist
SALT LAKE CITY -- U.S. Sen. John McCain said he has two things going for him in the race for the Republican nomination for president.
He said he can hit the ground running and doesn't need "any on-the-job training" on major issues facing the country.
"I have a proven record of reaching across the aisle and working in a bipartisan fashion," said McCain, R-Ariz.
McCain wrapped up two days of fundraising in Utah on Friday with Gov. Jon Huntsman at his side. He informally announced his bid for the nomination Wednesday on the "Late Show With David Letterman."
Huntsman supports McCain despite the popularity of Utah's favorite adopted son, Mitt Romney, who led the 2002 Winter Olympics out of scandal and belongs to the state's dominant faith, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Huntsman's billionaire father, also named Jon, is a key Romney backer.
McCain raised about $160,000 at a private, $1,000-a-plate lunch Thursday hosted by David Simmons, whose Simmons Media Group owns radio stations across the country, said Tim Bridgewater, regional political director.
Although McCain won't make a formal announcement about his candidacy until later this month, his news conference provided a look at the case he'll try to make with voters: balance the budget in four years, close the controversial prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, expand the U.S. military, stop wasteful spending.
The war in Iraq is a primary concern among voters. McCain said he'll continue to support President Bush's plan to deploy an additional 21,000 troops to try to stabilize the country. He said he's been calling for more troops for more than three years.
But McCain also said he didn't know how much patience the American people will have for the war.
"I can't determine that, but I think a lot of it will be impacted by their perception of if we are succeeding in this strategy," he said.
On other issues, McCain said nuclear power must be included in any strategy about global climate change because it cuts greenhouse-gas emissions.
McCain said he supports storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, which would require transporting waste across the country.
Utahns have fought against turning the West into a nuclear dumping ground and last year successfully lobbied the U.S. Interior Department to reject a nuclear-waste facility in the state's west desert.
"I believe we could transport waste safely and economically or we could reprocess," McCain said. "Other countries do it."
Reports that some political allies have questioned Romney's Mormon faith are "disgraceful" and "dishonorable," said McCain, who wants them separated from his campaign.
"There is no place for that in America in the 21st Century," said McCain, who said he's not reaching out to voters on basis of religion.
McCain said Republicans can hold the White House in 2008 despite the fact that voters gave Democrats control of Congress in November.
"America is fundamentally a right-of-center nation that (holds) certain values and principles and abilities on national security and national defense," he said.
"I think the Democratic Party is a left-of-center party. We Republicans lost our way and paid a price for it in the last election," McCain said.
"But I think we can get back to the party of the principles of Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan," he said.
McCain left Utah Friday and was headed to Arizona with Huntsman for another fundraising event.
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Los Alamos Monitor
March 02, 2007
LA scopes nuclear power plan
Roger Snodgrass
Monitor Assistant Editor
There was little common ground to be found at a scoping session Thursday night on the Global Nuclear Energy Initiative sponsored by the Department of Energy and the Bush administration.
For the most part, retired laboratory employees saw the plan to process spent fuel rods for nuclear fuel as an obvious and long-awaited antidote to fossil fuels and energy dependence.
On the other side, nuclear watchdogs and activists saw the plan as a vague, risky and deeply flawed regression to a technology that was discarded 30 years ago.
Los Alamos is under consideration, along with six other DOE sites, as the location for an advanced fuel cycle research facility, that would serve as a research and development center involve