Yucca Mountain News Clips - Thursday, March 29, 2007

Yucca Mountain News Clips
Thursday, March 29, 2007
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Guardian
March 29, 2007

Yucca Mountain Opening Date Could Slip

Thursday March 29, 2007 2:01 AM

By Erica Werner

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The head of the Yucca Mountain project said Wednesday that although 2017 is the goal for opening the Nevada nuclear waste dump, it will likely happen three or four years after that.

There could be more litigation and delays in getting construction authority from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said Edward F. ``Ward'' Sproat, director of the Energy Department's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management.

The program is already long delayed and the Energy Department keeps revising the opening date. The 2017 date was announced last summer; Sproat said he still hopes to make it.

Sproat warned lawmakers at a hearing that annual funding for Yucca must rise above the level it's been at for recent years - around $500 million - for the program to happen at all.

``If all we can do is continue to fund the repository at that level the repository will never be built, it will never happen,'' he told the House Appropriations energy and water development subcommittee.

Project managers already have had to adjust to getting $100 million less in the 2007 fiscal year than President Bush requested. The final 2007 figure was $444 million.

Once construction starts on the repository in the desert 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas costs will soar past $1 billion per year, according to Energy Department projections.

With Yucca Mountain's toughest foe, Democratic Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, running the Senate as majority leader, Sproat has been working hard to convince other lawmakers of the need to push the dump forward.

Yucca Mountain would be the first national repository for radioactive waste. It is meant to store at least 77,000 tons, but there are already roughly 50,000 tons waiting at reactor sites in dozens of states.

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
March 29, 2007

Yucca Mountain workers laid off; more cuts ahead

Panel hears $494.5 million budget plea

By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- Three dozen Yucca Mountain workers lost their jobs last week, and a Department of Energy official warned Wednesday that several hundred others may face layoffs in the months ahead.

The disclosure by Ward Sproat, director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, signaled that budget problems continue to face the nuclear waste program as department officials seek to assure Congress that the project is on a new track following setbacks and long delays.

Sproat delivered the program's latest budget request to a House appropriations energy and water subcommittee. Lawmakers will soon begin writing an Energy Department spending bill for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.

Sproat told lawmakers it was "absolutely vital" for Congress to allocate $494.5 million to carry out the latest schedule that calls for filing a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in June 2008 and a repository opening later in the next decade.

"We need all of it," Sproat said.

But even with full funding, it will be difficult to avoid job cuts later this year, Sproat said.

"If we get the full $494.5 million, that is still $50 million less than we are spending this year; so you are talking several hundred people" facing layoffs, he said after the meeting.

The project this year is spending $444.5 million plus is exhausting another $100 million in carryover funds from last year, he said.

Sproat told lawmakers his focus is meeting deadlines for the license application, and other parts of the project may be set aside.

"There will be substantial reductions, but we will get the license application completed on time," he said.

The Yucca Mountain program has been one of the larger employers of technical and white collar workers in the Las Vegas Valley, with a current workforce of 2,550 people.

The latest job losses hit employees at Bechtel-SAIC Corp., the program's chief operations contractor.

Spokesman Jason Bohne confirmed about 60 layoff warnings were issued several weeks ago to administrative and clerical workers in accounting, public relations and other departments, and to technical writers who are not working on the license application.

Ultimately, 35 people were laid off, and their final day was last Thursday.

"We worked to keep as many people on board as we could," Bohne said.

Two years ago, Bechtel laid off about 150 people.

Last summer, as many as 500 workers were issued job warnings, although many ended up transferring to the payroll of Sandia National Laboratories, which was assigned a larger role at Yucca Mountain.

Members of the House panel on Wednesday gave no clue about their intentions, although traditionally they have supported full funding for Yucca Mountain.

The project runs into tougher sledding in the Senate, where Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., its most powerful critic, has exercised control over its budget.

If anything, House lawmakers expressed impatience with the slow pace of Yucca Mountain and urged Sproat to speed it up if possible.

"I don't understand why it is taking so long," said Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif. "It is disturbing. I recall Hoover Dam was built working seven days a week around the clock in around three years. We are so tied down by our bureaucratic systems."

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
March 29, 2007

Erin Neff : Nuke dump dead? Not to Nye County

When you say the word "oversight" after the phrase "Yucca Mountain," most Nevadans think of the state's fight against the proposed nuclear waste dump. But in Nye County, home of Yucca Mountain, "oversight" clearly has a different meaning.

Nye is advertising for a new planner in its Nuclear Waste Repository Project Office. And both a look at the job description and interviews with county officials make it clear that the bulk of the planner's work will be planning for the repository to open.

"Incumbent will assist in coordinating Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository design, implementation, construction, operation, and closure impact assessment/impact mitigation with the local communities, county, state and federal agencies," the county's job description reads.

So much for Yucca Mountain being dead.

"Our responsibility is to assume that the repository is going forward," said David Swanson, interim acting director of Nye County's nuclear waste project office. "We'd be neglecting our duties if we didn't."

Fair enough. If I lived in the shadow of the mountain, I'd want my government to make sure the water is safe to drink and my family isn't exposed to radiation.

But the new planner, who will be focusing attention on Beatty and the Amargosa Valley, isn't being sought to protect the public's health and safety. In Beatty, the big question about water will be whether the water system in the small Death Valley gateway can handle an influx of residential growth as a result of the new jobs at the dump. In Amargosa Valley, the big question isn't about the safety of the children, but whether a high school will be needed as a result of the people who move there to work at the site.

"The job is basically to identify the potential impacts and to identify the resources the community has to deal with it," Swanson said.

The pay ain't shabby either. The position, which requires a master's degree in a planning field, will pay between $70,500 and $91,000 a year depending on the candidate's level of expertise.

Carl Torelli, a fiscal analyst in the county's nuclear waste office, said Nye County requested the position as an expansion of its oversight. The Department of Energy approved federal funding for the position on Feb. 20.

DOE already funds about a dozen positions in Nye County and the county also uses federal money to pay for about a dozen contractors.

Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid's recent message that the dump is dead isn't getting through in Nye County.

"We never call it a dump here," Swanson said. "We can't make that assumption (that the project is dead). We deal really closely with the DOE on that issue and we never get the feeling from DOE or the Nuclear Energy Institute that it's dead."

Then Swanson channeled the NEI lobbyists.

"What Harry Reid is proposing is to store this nuclear waste at 126 facilities that were never intended for storage, versus putting that waste in an engineered facility," Swanson said. "There is no technical issue here, the issues are political."

Bob Loux is the manager of the state's Nuclear Waste Project Office, whose Web site has an entire section devoted to technical issues. "They're spending time and money getting ready for the repository instead of opposing it," Loux said of Nye County's office.

Loux said Nye County is also under contract with the DOE to conduct certain hydrology projects and has cooperative agreements to coordinate certain regional plans. "Obviously when they're doing oversight, they are not in a position of formally opposing, and more and more they're leaning to support," Loux said. "That's their mode. It would certainly be more helpful if they would be more along the lines of Clark County."

Clark County, which is formally opposed to the repository, has conducted an economic impact study suggesting an accident at Yucca Mountain that releases radiation would have a devastating effect on the Southern Nevada economy.

The study suggests Southern Nevada would lose 54,000 jobs and that 90,000 residents would move.

The 2002 report also analyzed the impact to residential home values and threats to school children from the transportation of waste by rail and road.

Loux's office also receives federal oversight money from the DOE. The state currently has two active lawsuits against the DOE, both in Nevada courts. It is also preparing a response in the event DOE submits a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission next June.

"While we agree that it's dying," Loux said, "as long as Congress appropriates money for it, it's alive."

And as long as DOE funds high-paying jobs in rural Nevada to prepare for the dump, it would wrong to write Yucca Mountain's obituary. Especially with Nye County being such an adept Equal Opportunity Employer.

--Erin Neff's column runs Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. She can be reached at (702) 387-2906, or by e-mail at eneff@reviewjournal.com.

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
March 29, 2007

Giuliani has front-runner aura

GOP presidential candidate draws crowds of admirers in Las Vegas

By Molly Ball
Review-Journal

People love Rudy Giuliani.

That was obvious Wednesday as the former New York City mayor and current Republican presidential front-runner struggled to maneuver through a throng of people and cameras at a Las Vegas Target store where he was making a brief shopping trip and campaign stop.

They held out things for him to sign: Political fliers. Books. A baseball. Yankees hats. NYPD hats. FDNY hats. A girl's crayon drawing of an American flag on looseleaf paper. One woman even held out her checkbook.

They told him they loved him and wanted to vote for him and couldn't wait to see him in the White House.

They snapped him with their digital cameras and camera phones, shoving their children into the frame.

Moving through the aisles of the store on West Charleston Boulevard, Giuliani alternated a mock-serious survey of store shelves with posing for pictures, his rabbity, dimpled smile frozen in place.

From the $10 Value DVD rack, Giuliani selected "Remember the Titans," then waded in for more photo ops.

He stocked up on deodorant and Zone nutrition bars, batteries and lotion.

He picked up a book by Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel, whose last name, properly pronounced "vee-ZELL," he pronounced "WISE-ull."

A young woman stopped Giuliani to tell him she'd just moved to Las Vegas from New York, where she was on the 73rd floor of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.

"My brother was there too," 27-year-old Jill Moran told Giuliani. "We both got out."

Moran articulated the reason everyone remembers Giuliani, the reason everyone seems to love him.

"He changed our lives," she said, her eyes filling with tears. "He's the reason we went back to the city. He's the reason we went back to work."

Giuliani makes it clear he's hoping to parlay his post-9/11 leadership into the presidency.

Asked in an interview what Nevada voters want, he said, "I think they're looking for the same thing people in New York are looking for, or Texas, or South Carolina, or Iowa or New Hampshire. They're looking for a leader. They're looking for somebody who can give the country direction, focus, at a time in which we're at war."

Those aren't necessarily qualities the current leadership lacks, Giuliani said.

"I think President Bush as president has really remained very, very focused on dealing with these terrorists and kept us on offense. But I think that's something that will be continually even more important as this moves along. Iraq is only one part of this whole terrorist war against us, and I think we've got to understand that we have to be on offense, and I think the American people are going to want a strong leader who can handle terrorism, and I think I probably have the most experience doing that."

That experience isn't limited to the legendary few months after 9/11, when Giuliani was credited with holding New York together in the wake of historic trauma, but comes from his long service as a federal prosecutor, Giuliani said.

"I handled all kinds of criminal cases, including terrorism," he said. "I investigated (former Palestinian leader) Yasser Arafat before anybody knew who he really was. I dealt with Nazi war criminals and had them sent back to be held to account for the crimes, acts against humanity. I've got a very, very long history of dealing with severe criminality and terrorism."

Giuliani was in Las Vegas just before the November election, stumping for Gov. Jim Gibbons. On Wednesday, Giuliani said he loves to play golf here, and that Las Vegas reminds him of New York City, from the tourists on the Strip to the 24-hour rhythm.

Giuliani said he was aware of the safety concerns with the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain and "somebody would have to take a good look at that."

When pressed, he did not rule out the repository, however.

"One of the things you've got to be real careful about with nuclear power is you've got to make sure it's really, really safe," he said. "Frankly, some of the problems that have occurred with Yucca Mountain are matters of grave concern, so you'd have to take a good look at that."

Those concerns should not kill the nuclear power industry, he said.

"We're going to have to find a way to expand nuclear power, because it's one of the ways in which we can give ourselves (energy) independence and also not have it impact on the environment, on pollution, global warming, the things that concern people," he said.

In polls, both nationally and in Nevada, Giuliani has a strong and steady lead among Republican voters in these very early days, long before the 2008 election. And yet the conventional wisdom in political circles is that he can't win the Republican nomination.

Is it just a stereotype to assume that Republican stalwarts won't support a thrice-married Italian-American with a brusque New York accent?

Or are the pundits right when they say all that adulation will fade when people get to know the Giuliani who is no right-winger when it comes to abortion, gun control, immigration and homosexuality?

Asked how he planned to get through the primary, Giuliani shrugged.

"Right now we're ahead," he said, laughing. "So we'll see if it stays that way."

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Joliet Herald News
March 29, 2007

Don't Recycle Nukes Here, Residents Say

Dozens Attend a Meeting to Hearplans to Destroy Nuclear Waste

By Christina Chapman
Staff Writer

MORRIS -- Doug Kelty is obviously concerned for his health and safety if a recycling center for spent fuel rods is built across the street from his house. But he is more concerned with its effect on his ability to make a living.

Kelty is a local builder who has been building houses for 34 years. Currently he has four spec homes in Braidwood that he says he hasn't been able to sell in two years because of the tritium leaks in Braidwood.

"Not a person comes through where their first question is not,'Is there a water problem here with tritium?'" Kelty said.

If another nuclear project comes into the area, he said he is worried he will have to take his work north.

"It is my living that is being blocked," Kelty said.

Kelty and more than 100 other people, attended Wednesday's meeting on the environmental impact of a proposed nuclear fuel recycling operation at General Electric Co.'s Morris-area facility. A similar meeting was held in February in Joliet by the Department of Energy, but this meeting was hosted by a group of residents.

April Gerstung, Frank Barber and Ken Daggett put together the public meeting because they said the officials should come to the people who are directly affected by the proposed plant. The meeting was held at Goose Lake Hall in Morris, just down the road from Dresden Generating Station.

Representatives from GE, the DOE and Argonne National Laboratory presented the proposal to the public and then took questions.

President's partnership

The proposal is part of President Bush's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, which seeks to build facilities that will recycle spent nuclear fuel and destroy their long-lived radioactive components. The facilities would recover about 95 percent of the energy available in spent fuel and reduce radioactive half-lives.

The proposed plan is to design, build and operate three facilities: an advanced fuel cycle research facility, a nuclear fuel recycling center and an advanced recycling reactor, which would destroy long-lived radioactive elements in the new fuel, while generating electricity.

One Morris resident believes DOE's description of the process is inaccurate.

"They call it recycling, but it is actually restoring," said Geri Bilecki of Goose Lake.

In the 1970s, when research in this technology was stopped, it was because of the fear of terrorists getting the plutonium left over from processing. Plutonium can be used to make nuclear weapons. The new procedure no longer isolates plutonium, but turns it into a material that can be disposed of in a geologic repository, such as Yucca Mountain. The difference is that instead of storing it in the mountain for thousands of years until the waste becomes less hazardous, it will only take hundreds of years, said Brian Quirke of the DOE.

Kathy Gere of Naperville said the reprocessing procedure has yet to be successful elsewhere and therefore should not be brought to Illinois. In New York, a demonstration unit was open for six years and only processed a year's worth of spent fuel, she said. In that six years, the site and surrounding waters were contaminated and have still not been cleaned up, she said.

"With this track record I don't see how we could have a reprocessing plant here and be successful. I want to know what they have learned from this and prevent the same disaster here," Gere said.

GE and Argonne's role

GE would combine with research facilities at Argonne National Laboratory. The two facilities are among 13 sites in eight states under consideration for the project. GE was given $1.5 million from the DOE to conduct a study on the Morris location. A more specific economic study will be done later.

The DOE is expected to choose one or more sites for the new technology by June 2008.

GE currently stores spent nuclear fuel rods in on-site pools. If the GE site is chosen, the site's current rods would be put through the recycling process, which after construction, could take 15 years to complete.

GE is just southwest of Exelon Nuclear's Dresden Station, also outside of Morris, where nuclear spent rods are also stored. GE has said it will state in its application that it would only reprocess spent fuel from Illinois.

Even if the GE site is selected, it will only participate using Argonne's technology. Argonne is one of two companies that has come up with technology to reprocess the spent fuel. Argonne proposes to electronically drive the reprocessing procedure with the waste ending as a solid. The other method DOE is considering recycles the fuel chemically and turns the waste into a liquid.

The comment period with the DOE ends April 4. To send your comments, e-mail GNEP-PEIS@nuclear.energy.gov, call (866) 645-7803 or mail a letter to Timothy Frazier, Office of Nuclear Energy/U.S. DOE, 1000 Independence Ave., SW, Washington, D.C. 20585.

Christina Chapman can be reached at (815) 729-6172 or cchapman@scn1.com

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Brunswick Times Record
March 29, 2007

State's Maine Yankee report delayed

Bob_Kalish@TimesRecord.Com

WISCASSET — Unavoidable delays have pushed back the expected completion of the final state decommissioning report on the Maine Yankee nuclear power plant from December of this year until June 2008, according to the state nuclear safety inspector charged with the project.

Inspector Pat Dostie an-nounced the delay Wednesday night during the annual meeting of the Maine Yankee Community Advisory Panel on Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage and Removal.

The decommissioning re-port is the final stage in the decommissioning process, worked out eight years ago by state officials and representatives of Maine Yankee Atomic Power Co. The agreement between the two parties aligned the standards of cleanup between the state, Maine Yankee and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The agreement stipulates that the state would do its own inspection for radiation, using the same criteria as the NRC.

Eric Howes, spokesman for Maine Yankee, said the delay has no bearing on federal regulations.

"The NRC has already signed off on our inspection," he said. "This delay means nothing from a regulatory standpoint."

Dostie cited the loss of his assistant, weather delays and slowness in getting back laboratory reports as reasons for the delay. In addition to monitoring the site of the former nuclear power plant for radiation, Dostie is mandated to provide written reports of his findings.

The cost of Dostie's work is borne by Maine Yankee, which this year is paying $360,000, according to Howes.

The state is monitoring groundwater wells and roadside shoulders throughout the former plant, at sites monitored previously by Maine Yankee as part of its decommissioning process.

Maine Yankee is the first nuclear power plant in the country to be decommissioned. Currently, it is the site of more than 600 tons of spent nuclear fuel stored in an Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation awaiting resolution by the U.S. Department of Energy of a final resting place.

At Wednesday's meeting, Howes updated the CAP on what has transpired since its last meeting. The most pressing issue centers on Yucca Mountain, the proposed federal repository for spent nuclear fuel. Howes said the Department of Energy has revised its schedule with 2017 as the "best achievable" date for opening the repository.

Last September, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims ruled favorably in Maine Yankee's litigation with the federal government over its failure to remove spent nuclear fuel from the Maine Yankee site. The government appealed the ruling in December.

As a member of the Nuclear Waste Strategy Coalition, Maine Yankee continues to monitor the progress or lack of progress for the Yucca Mountain proposal.

In January, Maine Yankee's board of directors appointed Wayne Norton to be chief nuclear officer and Jim Connell vice president and Independent Spent Fuel Storage Installation manager. Norton also serves as president and CEO of Connecticut Yankee and Yankee Atomic in Massachusetts, both being decommissioned.

The spent fuel storage site is monitored by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and during the past year has been trouble-free, according to Howes.

The CAP voted to extend its charter for another two years, during which it will meet at least annually.

--State nuclear safety inspector Pat Dostie cited the loss of his assistant, weather delays and slowness in getting back laboratory reports as reasons for the delay.

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Senator Harry Reid
March 28, 2007

Press Release of Senator Reid

Reid Response to DOE Report Regarding Yucca Mountain Emails

Washington, D.C. - U.S. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada issued the following statement in response to a report by the Department of Energy regarding the Yucca Mountain email scandal.

"The Energy Department said it hopes this report puts the USGS email scandal to rest. Far from it. This report only highlights the fact that senior managers of the Yucca Mountain project were out of touch and failed to do their jobs. This is unacceptable when you consider the fact that we are talking about 77,000 tons of the most dangerous substance known to man.

"This is only one area of the Yucca Mountain project. One only has to wonder what else may have slipped through the cracks as a result of the DOE's admitted lack of leadership.

"If the Energy Department thought this report would make people feel better about Yucca Mountain, it is sorely mistaken."

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
March 28, 2007

NUCLEAR WASTE: Report blames Yucca managers

E-mails suggested scientists falsified data

By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- A final Department of Energy report issued Tuesday blamed top Yucca Mountain managers for the scandal in which several scientists appeared to suggest in e-mails that they were making up data and falsifying documents.

Senior management failed to hold workers accountable and to put effective reviews in place to ensure their work met quality assurance standards, the report said.

Fallout from the e-mails that were written between 1998 and 2004 by hydrologists assigned by the U.S. Geological Survey helped tie up the chronically delayed nuclear waste project since they were revealed two years ago this month.

The explosive messages prompted inquiries by Congress, raising questions about Department of Energy management and government science, and giving repository critics clips of ammunition to challenge the proposed Nevada repository.

"Wait till they figure out that nothing I've provided them is QA (quality assurance). If they really want the stuff, they'll have to pay to do it right," stated one message that contributed to the furor.

By Department of Energy estimates, the episode has cost $25.6 million for investigations and do-overs of key computer models.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the report will not put the e-mail controversy to rest.

"Far from it," Reid said. "This report only highlights the fact that senior managers of the Yucca Mountain project were out of touch and failed to do their jobs.

"This is unacceptable when you consider the fact that we are talking about 77,000 tons of the most dangerous substance known to man," Reid said.

"This report is too little, too late," said Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., who convened several hearings on the e-mails as a House subcommittee chairman in 2005 and 2006.

An internal department review team focused on 18 e-mails written by the hydrologists and sampled more than 900,000 other e-mails using word searches looking for similar problems.

Reviewers found no evidence that information was falsified as the e-mails suggested, according to the department's review.

Five other suspicious e-mails were uncovered and checked out.

The report did not find that negative attitudes toward quality assurance were widespread among scientists and engineers. But it concluded that top level Yucca officials did a poor job managing for quality.

"The real root cause of the problems came back to the senior management and their unwillingness to hold people accountable to quality assurance requirements, a lack of leadership," said Ward Sproat, who heads the Yucca project as director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management.

The findings echoed government audits that warned of persistent weaknesses in quality assurance, an important and meticulous record keeping process that enables research to be validated.

"The GAO must have 20 reports on Yucca Mountain, and almost all talk about management not making a commitment known to the people below them on this issue," said Bob Loux, director of the Nevada Office of Nuclear Projects.

Sproat, a former nuclear industry executive and consultant, took over the Yucca program last year and has embarked on a series of reforms to the project, which is years behind schedule.

In a presentation at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Sproat said Yucca Mountain has been marked by top level mishandling of quality assurance since the early 1990s, when the project was taking shape.

"I would not use the word 'indictment,' but I would say that a lot of folks who were in the director's position had not been involved in the nuclear industry and don't understand the importance of quality assurance and how to apply it," Sproat said after his presentation.

Sproat said most of the managers in place when the e-mails were written are no longer with the project, as well as the e-mail authors.

He said no dismissals or reassignments were planned as a result of the new findings.

Sproat said he was meeting with workers to discuss his expectations. He said pay raises for managers would be tied to progress in identifying and fixing mistakes.

Apart from the ongoing corrective actions, the report brings to a close the Energy Department's investigations of the e-mails.

The messages raised suspicions that data may have been manipulated and documents may have been falsified by hydrologists frustrated with the requirements for a computer model they were preparing to project how water flows through the mountain.

"Once more we see the history of mismanagement at Yucca Mountain and an inability on the part of DOE to follow quality assurance procedures, which has been a chronic problem for years," said Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev.

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Reno Gazette-Journal
March 28, 2007

Lyon board to participate in Nevada Rail Workshop

Keith Trout
Reno Gazette-Journal

It wasn't a unanimous decision, but the Lyon County Board of Commissioners voted to support a request of the United States Transport Council and become a cooperator to upcoming workshops scheduled, with the first to be held in Hawthorne and Schurz.

Commissioners Bob Milz and Phyllis Hunewill voted against the motion of support by Commissioner LeRoy Goodman at the March 15 board meeting, who felt it was important to support the request from the U.S. Transport Council. Goodman said by this action Lyon County would be supporting its neighboring counties that are involved in the Nevada Rail Outreach Program. "It's important to know what's going on," he added.

Milz and Hunewill said he felt the county was hit unprepared by this request, as the information turned in to the commission for part of its packet didn't really reflect what was being requested of the county. A packet was handed out that day by the Transport Council and while they appreciated the information, Milz said, "We had no chance to evaluate it."

In response to that, David Blee, executive director of the United States Transport Council (USTC), said his organization had read about Lyon County's concerns about possible transport of spent nuclear fuel to Yucca Mountain and thus wanted to provide information to the county. "We build bridges and get the facts out," he'd earlier said, noting "local counties need to understand what's going on."

Lyon County was upset it hadn't received information about the rail shipment proposals of the spent nuclear fuel that could travel through the county, as no hearings were conducted by the U.S. Department of Energy here.

"We were left out of the loop," Chairman Hunewill said of the DOE information process.

The USTC is a nonprofit organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., formed in 2002 to provide "factual information on nuclear materials transportation experience, safety, emergency planning and security," according to its website (www.ustransportcouncil.org), at the time of the Yucca Mountain ratification debate.

The website also describes this organization as "the leading voice of the U.S. nuclear materials transport industry on public education, policy issues and business issues of importance to the transportation-related community -- ranging from potential spent fuel transportation to the proposed Yucca Mountain storage site for spent nuclear fuel and high-level waste to front-end nuclear materials shipments." Its membership (over two dozen) includes the U.S.'s leading transportation companies, customers and associated industries, including several groups involved in the nuclear energy industry.

The USTC Nevada Workshop is scheduled May 21-23 in Hawthorne but Blee said the second day of that workshop would be conducted in Schurz at the Walker River Paiute Tribe. The board's action indicated the county would support that workshop and other informational efforts.

This would be the third annual Nevada workshop focused on Yucca Mountain transportation issues and the 2007 theme is, 'Perspectives on the Nevada Rail Corridor." Among participants listed in the packet include Nevada officials, WRPT, DOE, USTC members, nuclear energy community representatives and others. The topics include the transportation cycle, economic impacts and county perspectives.

Blee said they were seeking Lyon County as a cooperating organization with the workshops, as several other Nevada counties (Mineral, Nye, Esmeralda, Churchill) have joined and there is no cost for county participation in the workshops.

Blee spoke about the safe record and security of transportation of spent nuclear fuel thus far, noting rail transportation had been chosen as part of the Yucca Mountain plan. However, he noted there were no rail lines directly to Yucca Mountain and originally the DOE was looking at the Caliente line, which goes from Caliente to Tonopah and then to Pahrump and on to Yucca. However, since then DOE has looked at the Mina line, which would come from the north and pass through parts of Lyon County such as Fernley, Silver Springs and the north end of Mason Valley and down through Mineral County.

Blee said they wanted the transportation facts to be out, including results of a three-year National Academy of Sciences study, "and let the chips fall where they may."

He said a Academy of Sciences independent study concluded in 2006 "there are no fundamental technical barriers to the safe transport of spent nuclear fuel in the U.S.", but transportation packages is crucial for safety.

Goodman said he agreed rail was preferable to roads.

Blee reported there had been over 3,000 safe spent fuel shipments in the U.S. over the past 30 years covering over 2 million miles with no release of radioactive material harmful tot eh public or the environment, while noting Britain and France do many nuclear shipments (650 per year, three times as many as planned to Yucca).

In providing background, Blee explained the U.S. government chose in 1982 to use a single site for storage of spent nuclear fuel and then in 1987 chose after 20 years research the Yucca Mountain site. Then in 2002 Congress chose the site over the objections of Nevada.

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Environment News Service
March 28, 2007

AmeriScan: March 27, 2007

Report Downplays Yucca Mountain Email Scandal

WASHINGTON, DC, March 27, 2007 (ENS) - Government employees who discussed falsifying water reports in emails about their work at Nevada's Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository did not actually falsify the reports, according to a report issued today by the Energy Department's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, OCRWM.

Three employees of the U.S. Geological Survey, USGS, were involved in the computer modeling of water infiltration at Yucca Mountain between 1998 and 2004.

While the Root Cause Analysis Team "found no evidence that information associated with the USGS work was falsified or modified as suggested in the emails, certain of the infiltration modeling products on which these employees worked did not meet OCRWM's traceability and transparency requirements," the report said.

The team found that "corrective actions to address issues associated with the infiltration products were not always effective."

The report identifies as the root cause of these conditions "a failure by OCRWM senior management to establish and hold the OCRWM organization accountable for meeting quality expectations with regard to the USGS infiltration products."

Joseph Hevesi is the primary author of the emails that appear to indicate the data used in scientific studies at the Yucca Mountain Project was falsified. Hevesi denies having falsified any Yucca Mountain documents, and last April a report by Energy Department Inspector General Gregory Friedman did not recommend criminal prosecutions.

One incriminating email from Hevesi, dated 3/30/2000, reads, "The programs, of course, are all already installed otherwise the ___ would not exist. I don't have a clue when these programs were installed. So I've made up the dates and names (see red edits below). This is as good as its going to get. If they need more proof, I will be happy to make up more stuff, as long as its not a video recording of the software being installed."

Although Hevesi and the two other USGS workers whose names appeared on suspect emails, Alan Flint and Lorraine Flint, are now said not to have falsified the, Nevada Senator Harry Reid is not reassured. He and the entire Nevada Congressional delegation believe the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear dump is unsafe and scientifically unsound.

Reid, the Democratic Senate Majority Leader, said today, "The Energy Department said it hopes this report puts the USGS email scandal to rest. Far from it. This report only highlights the fact that senior managers of the Yucca Mountain project were out of touch and failed to do their jobs. This is unacceptable when you consider the fact that we are talking about 77,000 tons of the most dangerous substance known to man."

"This is only one area of the Yucca Mountain project," said Reid. "One only has to wonder what else may have slipped through the cracks as a result of the DOE's admitted lack of leadership. If the Energy Department thought this report would make people feel better about Yucca Mountain, it is sorely mistaken."

The Root Cause Analysis report includes recommendations to ensure that USGS infiltration work conforms to OCRWM's quality assurance requirements, and also to improve OCRWM management processes. The report also includes a Corrective Action Plan to address the recommendations.

"We have developed an aggressive action plan to make necessary improvements, including enhancing the nuclear culture and improving line management ownership and implementation of quality," said OCRW Director MWard Sproat. "We are asking nuclear industry experts to provide insight into industry best practices and recommendations for implementation."

OCRWM also issued a technical impacts report in February 2006, and Sandia National Laboratories is now working to verify or replace the infiltration modeling work done by USGS.

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Guardian
March 28, 2007

Managers Blamed in Yucca Controversy

By Erica Werner

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Evidence of paperwork fraud by scientists working on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in Nevada was the fault of senior managers who failed to hold subordinates accountable, according to a final report by the Energy Department.

Tuesday's report, two years after the controversy came to light, said the problem was limited to a few disgruntled U.S. Geological Survey scientists who no longer work on the project. The project has a new senior management team that has made a number of changes and promised more.

At issue were e-mails exchanged among USGS hydrologists between 1998 and 2004 that indicated they falsified documentation of their work by making up dates and keeping two different sets of papers - one for themselves and another for quality-assurance officials.

``This is as good as it's going to get. If they need more proof, I will be happy to make up more stuff,'' one scientist wrote.

Energy Department officials said they hope Tuesday's report would put the whole issue to rest. Among other things, the report said a review of modeling reports and notebooks didn't turn up evidence that information actually was falsified or modified as the e-mails suggested.

The U.S. attorney's office in Nevada announced a year ago that no criminal charges would be brought, and the Energy Department said last year that the scientific work was being redone by Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, at a cost of more than $20 million.

Edward F. ``Ward'' Sproat, director of the Energy Department's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, told reporters the root cause of the controversy was ``senior management's unwillingness or inability to hold people accountable ... a lack of, quite frankly, leadership.''

Many of the managers involved have moved on, said Sproat, who took over the Yucca project last May. He said he would visit personally with program employees to communicate expectations and initiate another review of quality assurance requirements, among other fixes.

The scientists were studying how water moves through the dump site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, a key factor in how much radiation can be released. The USGS validated Energy Department conclusions that water seepage was relatively slow, so radiation would be less likely to escape. That led Yucca Mountain opponents to contend the scientists were changing data to reach a predetermined conclusion.

Yucca Mountain, meant to open in 1998 as the first national repository for nuclear waste, has been plagued by troubles and delays. The tentative opening date is now 2017.

Meanwhile, more than 50,000 tons of waste from civilian nuclear reactors - as well as highly radioactive waste produced by Defense Department activities - is being held at various sites nationwide, with no place to go.

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San Diego Union Tribune
March 27, 2007

Report blames management failures for Yucca Mountain e-mail controversy

By Erica Werner
Associated Press

WASHINGTON – Evidence of paperwork fraud by scientists working on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in Nevada was the fault of senior managers who failed to hold subordinates accountable, according to a final report by the Energy Department.

At issue were e-mails exchanged among USGS hydrologists between 1998 and 2004 that indicated they falsified documentation of their work by making up dates and keeping two different sets of papers – one for themselves and another for quality-assurance officials.

“This is as good as it's going to get. If they need more proof, I will be happy to make up more stuff,” one scientist wrote.

Edward F. “Ward” Sproat, director of the Energy Department's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, told reporters the root cause of the controversy was “senior management's unwillingness or inability to hold people accountable ... a lack of, quite frankly, leadership.”

Yucca Mountain, meant to open in 1998 as the first national repository for nuclear waste, has been plagued by troubles and delays. The tentative opening date is now 2017.

Meanwhile, more than 50,000 tons of waste from civilian nuclear reactors – as well as highly radioactive waste produced by Defense Department activities – is being held at various sites nationwide, with no place to go.

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UPI
March 27, 2007

Rep. Porter attempt to kill Yucca fails

WASHINGTON, March 27 (UPI) -- Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., attempted to cut all the 2008 funding for a nuclear waste dump in his state and is attacking Democrats for not helping the cause.

Porter proposed an amendment to a bill debated in the House Budget Committee that would have zeroed out the $494.5 million the U.S. Energy Department wants for the Yucca Mountain Project for fiscal year 2008.

Yucca Mountain, located about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is proposed to house at least 77,000 tons of nuclear waste produced mostly by U.S. nuclear plants. But the project is decades behind schedule and has been saddled with scientific and quality assurance problems as well as stiff opposition from Nevada -- from both parties.

Porter said the project cannot be fixed. But Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., said the debate over the funding deserved more time than the Committee had set aside. Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Texas, said the Appropriations Committee is the proper venue for it.

Porter and 11 other Republicans voted for the amendment but one Republican and 22 Democrats voted against it, the Las Vegas Review reports.

"The real message is the majority of Republicans on this committee are saying time out and the majority of Democrats said move forward," Porter said.

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., took issue with Porter targeting the Democratic Party. "Perhaps some Democrats would have come along had someone made an overture toward the senior member of the Nevada House delegation and its only Democrat," Berkley spokesman David Cherry said.

"Dumping nuclear waste in Nevada has been a priority for President Bush since he took office in 2001," Cherry added.

A spokesman for Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the top member of the Senate, said "Yucca Mountain is on its last breath and everyone knows it."

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Tri-City Herald
March 27, 2007

Oregon hearing unleashes objections

Annette Cary
Herald Staff Writer

HOOD RIVER, Ore. -- Oregon has strong objections to using the Hanford nuclear reservation to reprocess spent commercial nuclear fuel, a state official said Monday night.

"(The Global Nuclear Energy Partnership) makes some amazing claims in terms of its potential to reduce waste volumes," said Ken Niles, the assistant director of the Oregon Department of Energy. "Pardon our skepticism, but when something sounds too good to be true, it usually is."

About 150 people, including at least two dozen from the Tri-Cities, attended the Oregon public hearing on a Department of Energy environmental study for GNEP. The meeting followed a March 13 hearing in Pasco that drew a crowd twice the size largely favoring the proposal.

The Bush administration is proposing reprocessing used commercial nuclear fuel to produce more electricity while destroying waste that would otherwise have to be disposed of at a national repository like Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Modern technology would prevent plutonium from being separated from the waste and falling into unfriendly hands, under the plan.

Hanford is one of several sites across the nation proposed for a reprocessing center, a reactor to use the recycled fuel and a research center for the project, together creating up to 8,000 new jobs.

Many of the Oregon residents and others at the meeting opposed a new mission for the Hanford nuclear reservation until contamination is cleaned up from the past production of plutonium for the nation's nuclear weapons. They were skeptical that a government that has struggled to clean up past contamination could make good on promises made under a new program.

DOE is like a detergent company that advertises a new and improved project every month, but nothing really changes, said Dave Howard of Vancouver, Wash., who said he has been attending Hanford meetings since the '70s.

"There is no guarantee there will be no contamination" from GNEP, said Clifford Casseseka of the Yakama Nation. He also questioned how many years fuel might be stored at Hanford before it is reprocessed.

As the meeting got started, Gerald Pollet, executive director of Heart of America Northwest, demanded to know why DOE had not provided concrete information in opening statements about how much used fuel might be brought to Hanford and through what western Oregon and Washington ports.

His question, called from the back of the room, was met with cheers and boos. Later the moderator had to remind the crowd that everyone deserved a chance to speak. Outside the conference center, a woman beat a drum.

The Tri-Citians at the meeting made a case for how GNEP could benefit the nation and Oregon.

"It is the first real initiative that has the potential to provide global energy security, reduce the risk of nuclear proliferation and improve our environment," said Jerry Peltier, a retired Hanford worker and the former West Richland mayor.

GNEP would offer Oregon a way to get rid of spent nuclear fuel from the Trojan nuclear reactor, said Linda Alexander of Richland.

"I'm blown away by the hysteria I see tonight," said Dona Kirk of Kennewick. GNEP provides a way to "clean up and power up," she said.

"There should be more hysteria," responded Sabine Hilding of the Oregon-based Hanford Watch. Hanford workers, who would have a short-term gain from the massive build-up for the project, should have no say in a project that long-term would produce "a heap of pollution."

DOE has said the project would reduce the amount of waste that remains radioactive for thousands of years, and no liquid secondary waste would be stored at the site picked for the project.

But Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., in a statement an aide read into the record, said that "reprocessing spent fuel is like King Midas on steroids." Everything the waste touches will create more waste.

"DOE has not fulfilled its obligation to clean up Hanford, and it's not clear when it will," he said in his statement. "Hanford does not need more nuclear waste. It needs less."

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Trenton Times
March 27, 2007

Editorials

Produce energy

By Letty Goodman Lutzker

In these days of professed concern about global warming, pollution and energy security, why are we ignoring a huge clean domestic energy resource -- spent fuel from nuclear power plants? Spent fuel contains valuable nuclear materials that can be recycled and reused at nuclear power plants to produce electricity. Mistakenly called nuclear "waste," it is stored in engineered water pools and concrete-and-steel casks at nuclear plants, approximately 50,000 tons today in the U.S. -- a vast trove of potentially usable fuel.

Here in New Jersey, we have al most 2,000 tons of spent fuel at the Hope Creek, Oyster Creek and Salem nuclear plants. If the pluto nium and uranium were chemically extracted and converted into what is called mixed-oxide fuel for re-use at our nuclear plants, more non- polluting nuclear-generated electricity could be produced, eliminating the need for new fossil-fuel plants.

Recycling by reprocessing is a technology first envisioned by the pioneer developers of nuclear energy more than a half-century ago. They recognized it as a way to close the nuclear fuel cycle and make full use of valuable nuclear materials.

Reprocessing was routinely done in the United States until President Jimmy Carter banned its use in 1977, on grounds that pluto nium might fall into the wrong hands and lead to nuclear-weapons proliferation. Carter wanted to set a moral example for the rest of the world. But France, Great Britain and Japan have continued recy cling spent fuel safely and effi ciently. The United States is the only major nuclear country that wastes this valuable resource.

Reprocessing is safe, because the plutonium is diluted with a small quantity of other materials, making its use for nuclear weapons extremely difficult and improbable. It would enable the United States to remain a world leader in nuclear energy, guiding the development of global policies on nuclear technology and commercial applications.

Now, President George W. Bush is mounting an effort to establish a modern infrastructure for spent- fuel recycling. His Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, or GNEP, calls for construction of a nuclear recy cling center, an advanced "fast reactor," and a research facility for developing recycling technologies that lessen, if not prevent, possible diversion of plutonium for weapons production. The U.S. Department of Energy is considering 11 loca tions, mainly government nuclear installations such as the Savannah River Site in South Carolina and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee, as sites for the facilities.

GNEP's goal is to foster the expanded use of nuclear power in the United States and worldwide by making reprocessed fuel available to any nation willing to forego its own recycling capability. This would extend the world's uranium resources almost indefinitely while shutting off a key route to weapons production, helping to make the world a safer place. Other countries are watching the GNEP program with considerable interest, since it would meet the world's growing need for energy.

One uranium fuel pellet the size of the tip of the little finger produces electricity equivalent to that produced by 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas or 149 gallons of oil. Since 1973, our nuclear industry has saved the equivalent of 20 trillion cubic feet of natural gas or 2.7 billion barrels of oil. Although there have been no orders for new nuclear plants in the United States in recent years, 17 utilities or consor tia are preparing to build as many as 33 new nuclear plants to provide the electricity needed for our economy to grow to meet the needs of its expanding population. We have reliable sources of uranium in friendly countries such as Canada and Australia and can extend the supplies far into the future by recy cling.

Recycling reduces the amount and toxicity of nuclear waste re quiring disposal. Recycling is not a substitute for nuclear waste disposal because some waste would remain after spent fuel is recycled and this waste would need to be disposed of in the Yucca Mountain repository in Nevada. But recycling would eliminate the need for a second or even a third waste repository. It would be possible to put all of the waste from nuclear power plants and the defense program in the Yucca Mountain facility, saving tens of billions of dollars and avoiding another politically difficult sit ing process.

The worldwide resurgence of nuclear power globally makes recy cling all the more essential. Approximately 1,000 nuclear power plants will likely be operating worldwide by mid-century, up from approximately 440 now. Among the countries gearing up to build their first nuclear power plants are Egypt, Brazil, Vietnam and Indonesia.

A U.S. reprocessing program can help such countries improve their people's living standards while eliminating the need to develop their own nuclear fuel production facilities. At that point, we would be entering the second nuclear era -- one that offers even greater economic and environmental benefits than we have gained from nuclear energy's first half-century.

Letty Goodman Lutzker, M.D., is chief of nuclear medicine at Saint Barnabas Medical Center.

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Vermont Guardian
March 26, 2007

Activists roam state to shut down Vermont Yankee

By Christian Avard

BRATTLEBORO — In an effort they hope will make people aware of the need to shut down Vermont Yankee and put more renewable energy online, activists are walking across Vermont.

Their goal is tell Vermonters they have the power to determine their energy future and they can act to shut the plant down and move to a more sustainable energy future.

On March 24 the Citizens Awareness Network (CAN) of Shelburne Falls, MA, and the Buddhist order of Nipponzan Myohoji began their trek in Greenfield, MA and walked to the Vermont towns of Guilford, Brattleboro, and Putney where they held potlucks and informational discussions with Vermonters about the state’s lone nuclear power plant.

“This is the second time we’ve held the ‘Walk for a Nuclear Free Future,’” said Hattie Nestel of Athol, MA. Nestel worries about Vermont Yankee’s bid to extend its operating license beyond 2012, and wants Vermonters to understand why Vermont shouldn’t extend it.

“Nuclear power plants have been given uprates all over the country to put out more electricity which creates more fuel for bombs, plutonium, and tritium,” said Nestel, noting that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has yet to say no to an uprate or relicensure request.

“I think the reason that they are [being approved] is because the public is not really aware of how dangerous they are,” said Nestel.

The NRC is now reviewing Vermont Yankee’s application of re-licensure and their request to operate an additional 20 years. Currently the NRC is evaluating whether or not Vermont Yankee components can withstand operation until 2032, and if the plant has any adverse effects on the surrounding environment. However, the NRC is not taking into consideration whether or not the plant is vulnerable to terrorist attacks and nuclear waste storage that some CAN members take issue with that omission.

The Massachusetts Attorney General is taking the NRC to federal court over the issue of waste storage and vulnerability. An attempt by the attorney general to have these issues reviewed during the relicensure process was denied by the NRC and its advisory panel, the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board.

The attorney general is also, along with nine other attorneys general, asking the NRC to reconsider how it examines the safety of spent fuel pools and long-term onsite waste storage at all nuclear power plants.

The issue of long-term, on site storage of nuclear waste is one that concerns many people who live near the Vernon reactor, whether they are in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, or Vermont.

And, activists believe people outside the immediate emergency planning area should also be concerned.

“I think that central and northern Vermonters really need to take into account the high-level radioactive waste and right at this point, Yucca Mountain is not open and it’s never going to open and it’s very unlikely we’re going to have a federal repository for the high-level nuclear waste and even if we did, it would take us 20 years to move it all,” said Claire Chang of Gill, MA. “So it’s not a situation where Vermont can just close it’s eyes and hope and wish and pray that’s it’s just not there and we’re not going to pay any attention to the pink elephant in the middle of the living room.”

Senate Pres. Pro Tempore Peter Shumlin, D-Windam, told the Montpelier-Barre Times Argus earlier this month that legislators were “astounded” to learn in February that the NRC is not considering storage of high-level radioactive waste with respect to Vermont Yankee’s re-licensure efforts.

He has since urged for an independent safety assessment and removal of the high-level radioactive waste from Vermont Yankee’s Vernon site.

“Why should Windham County be the designated dump for the entire state of Vermont? Morally, how can the rest of Vermont say, ‘Oh well, we’re just going to write off Windham County,’” said Chang.

She noted the irony that Chittenden County, the most populous of all Vermont counties and a major user of electricity, has been unable to site a garbage dump, yet seems to be OK with allowing a nuclear waste site to be OK’d along the Connecticut River.

On March 25, more than a dozen participants walked from Guilford to Brattleboro with stops along away at the School for International Training where they met with students during lunch and proceeded to Vermont Yankee headquarters where they conducted Buddhist prayers.

On March 26, the group travelled by foot to Bennington where they held a potluck with concerned citizens and distributed literature in town to raise awareness. They will repeat that process all week.

“We want to alert the citizenry and they have the power, the right, and the responsibility to talk to their legislators about Vermont Yankee, the high-level radioactive waste and what they want done with it and also about their feelings about renewables. We really need to put in wind, and solar and it’s not negotiable. It’s not something we can wait to do in 10 years; we need to do it now,” said Chang. “So, part of it is that every person that sees us will hopefully have more motivation to go and talk to their legislator and to impress upon the Legislature that we’re serious, and they must stand up to the utilities and the monied interests and say that Vermont is going to lead the nation in renewable energy production,” said Chang.

Lawmakers have also been lobbied by pro-nuclear groups, including Patrick Moore, a co-founder of Greenpeace, who now tours the country talking about how nuclear power should be considered a fuel source that does not emit greenhouse gas emissions and better for the planet than many current fuel sources.

By law, the Legislature must vote on whether Vermont Yankee should have its license extended, but there is disagreement about whether its vote would have any impact on the NRC licensing process.

--For more information: In the coming days, the walk will visit Rutland City, Middlebury, Montpelier, Johnson, and Burlington. For more information on the walk call (978) 790-3074 or go to www.nukebusters.org.

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Las Vegas SUN
March 25, 2007

Delegate goes stealthy with Yucca Mountain

By Lisa Mascaro
Las Vegas Sun

WASHINGTON - Last week was not one for bipartisanship among Nevada's congressional delegation.

Fresh off winning passage of his bill on Monday to help Lake Mead fight the invasive quagga mussel, Republican Rep. Jon Porter set his sights on a bigger prize: Stopping Yucca Mountain.

Within days Porter made a last-minute decision to go after President Bush's proposed $494.5 million Yucca Mountain budget. By Wednesday the congressman was sitting through a House Budget Committee meeting that ran well past midnight for the chance to offer a surprise amendment that would have cut Bush's Yucca budget to zero.

Not surprisingly, the amendment didn't pass. But rather than celebrate the stealth move that garnered 12 votes, all from Republicans, Porter railed against committee Democrats for keeping Yucca Mountain "very much alive."

That argument runs counter to opinions voiced by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and other Nevadans that Yucca is dead, even if the Bush administration is trying to put the project on sound footing before leaving office.

Porter has branched out on his own on Yucca before, when his committee investigated allegedly falsified e-mails and unsuccessfully subpoenaed the White House to release documents last year. But last week's go-it-alone venture potentially left the delegation exposed to partisanship, said David Cherry, a spokesman for Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley.

"I don't think it came across as something important to Nevadans," Cherry said. "It came across as a Republican member offering an amendment to change a Democratic bill."

He added, "It's better to work as a delegation, to work together to try to kill it, rather than to have someone say , 'Hey, look at me .'"

Porter says he had no choice but to keep the plan hush-hush lest it be killed before he could bring it to a committee vote.

Spokesman Matt Leffingwell says winning 12 votes against Yucca was a "huge success" and shows "members are recognizing this is a fiscally irresponsible project."

"This is a reckless waste of taxpayer funds. People are starting to get it. The message is starting to resonate."

Over in the Senate, Nevadans weren't getting along much better.

Reid told Nevada reporters in a conference call about the benefits of the Democrats' 2008 budget: Cut middle-class taxes by $180 billion, fund children's health insurance and produce a budget surplus by 2012. A short time later Republican Sen. John Ensign had reporters on the line to badmouth the spending plan as nothing more than gimmicks that will raise taxes by letting existing tax cuts expire.

Perhaps the only Nevadan not slugging it out with another member of the delegation last week was Republican Rep. Dean Heller - he decided to pick a fight with his neighbors instead.

Heller took to the House floor to denounce the District of Columbia voting rights bill, which would give residents of the district a full-fledged member of Congress.

Because district residents probably would elect a Democrat, the bill also would shift a House seat to a presumably Republican district in Utah.

But Heller said it would not be fair to Nevada, where population growth is much greater than Utah's. Nevada is expected to get another seat after the 2010 Census.

The bill was sent back to committee.

This week, keep an eye out for news about a new top prosecutor for Nevada from Ensign's office: Justice Department spokesman Tory Mazzola said Friday they had started meetings with candidates to succeed ousted U.S. Attorney Daniel Bogden.

Lisa Mascaro can be reached at (202) 662-7436 or at lisa.mascaro@lasvegassun.com.

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Las Vegas SUN
March 25, 2007

Q+A: Hillary Clinton

If president, no way on Yucca Mountain

By Michael J. Mishak
Las Vegas Sun

Sen. Hillary Clinton visited Las Vegas on Friday. She was one of three Democratic presidential contenders to address thousands of Culinary Union members at a rally billed as the kickoff to the union's negotiations with the big casino companies.

Widely seen as front-runner in her bid for the White House, Clinton talked about Western issues with the Sun while traveling between events. With her was Clark County Commission Chairman Rory Reid, of Clinton's Nevada campaign.

Told as the interview began that she would be quizzed on Western issues, Clinton said, "Well, Rory may have to answer for me."

He didn't. She did.

The rub.

Q. If elected president, what would you do on the Yucca Mountain issue?

I voted against Yucca Mountain as a senator. I was convinced then, and I'm convinced now that it's not a suitable depository for our nuclear waste. I think we need to look for solutions to our waste problem but I am totally against using Yucca Mountain. Period.

But is there any way to kill the project?

You can refuse to put money in the budget, which is what I would do. The president just doesn't fund it as a priority, which then forces the Congress - if they want to keep pursuing it - to try and do so. And I don't think that they would be able to do that, which would then concentrate everybody's attention on trying to find an alternative.

How would you address the larger issue of energy?

We need to do much more to incentivize biofuels of all kinds. We also have to do more on solar and wind energy to make them commercially viable.

In order to move these forms of alternative green energy more quickly to broader commercial use, we need a strategic energy fund. We should take away the tax subsidies from big oil and gas, because frankly they don't need them anymore. We should put the subsidies into research that fast-tracks these alternative green forms of energy that can be American-owned.

It's not something that can happen overnight, but if we combined that with greater efforts on conservation and energy efficiency, we would move considerably toward diminishing our dependence on foreign oil. It's important for our security. It's important for our environment, because I do believe we have a global climate change challenge we need to start dealing with. It's also a job creator.

Is there a role for the federal government in the debate over water, or the lack of it?

Much of what has to occur must take place locally and on the state level, and even between states. But I think the federal government can be sensitive to this problem, can be a convener, can figure out if there are laws or regulations that stand in the way of getting access to the water that is needed for fast-growing places like Las Vegas. It can look at sensible, effective projects that might help and provide funding for them. I think there's a partnership role. The federal government can't dictate it from Washington but it can be a good collaborator with the Clark County Commission, local governments and the state.

Should the government intervene in the Colorado River Compact?

I don't know the answer to that. It involves a lot of complex interests. Certainly, as president, I'm interested in solving problems, and I'm interested in helping states get whatever tools they need as they work out their differences.

What's your impression of the Las Vegas labor landscape?

I think it's a real tribute to Las Vegas that there's this positive relationship between the employers and the union, in part because this is a city that has to make people feel good. People come here because they want to come. It's a fun destination where they get good value for their money. One of the ways you do that is by having productive employees who not only do their work very well but convey that feeling of satisfaction so that people feel good when they're customers and visitors. I think it's a win-win. The employers get a productive, loyal, hardworking workforce. And workers can work their way up if they're willing to work hard and get a good standard of living.

So, you support "card checks" and the Employee Free Choice Act?

If you go back and look at the 20th century, as labor membership went up, middle-class living standards went up. People got into the middle class. For the first time they could send their children to college, they could buy a home. Now, as labor participation is declining, we see people are squeezed in the middle class. With all due respect, it is not rich people that made America great. It is hardworking people who put their time in, did their part and unions were an essential aspect of that bargain.

I think we ought to take a broader view of this, and recognize that if we want to keep the engine of economic growth going for everybody, unions are a part of that balance. We should get rid of the anti-union restrictions that have now been deployed very forcefully in the last six years and let it be free choice.

If people don't want to join a union, this is America. But if people do want to join a union , they should not be coerced, harassed and intimidated.

How would you approach immigration reform?

We've got to do everything simultaneously. You can't do just one. It won't work.

We've got to secure our borders with more personnel and technology. We've got to enforce our immigration laws so that employers are not violating them and exploiting workers. We have to provide more assistance to local communities. They don't set national policy on immigration but they're often left with the expenses of education, health care and law enforcement. We have to do more to stimulate our neighbors to the south to have a better economic future. People there are voting with their feet because they can't have a decent life.

We have to deal with the 12 million or so people who are here. I want to get them out of the shadows because I want to know who's in our country. Some of the 9/11 hijackers overstayed their visas and nobody knew who they were, where they were or what they were up to. You can't track them if you don't know who they are.

You're not going to get them out of the shadows if you're standing there telling them they're going to be deported. Now, we're going to deport all the criminals, make no mistake about it. But if you're a hardworking person and you're doing the best you can and you're raising your kids right, we're going to give you a chance if you pay a fine, pay all your taxes, if you try to learn English, to have an earned path to citizenship. You can't jump the line. It may take years, but you won't be living in fear and you can continue doing the work that is helping to support this economy.

With the president threatening to veto Democratic legislation on Iraq, what are the remaining options?

We're trying to convince the president to change course in Iraq. He has the power to veto. It's very hard to get the votes to override a veto, but we're going to keep doing what we can to send a message that we should begin withdrawing our troops and we should change direction in getting the Iraqis to take more responsibility.

You're in Las Vegas. Are you a gambler?

Well, I'm running for president (laughs). I'm a political gambler. I'm not much of a financial gambler.

--Michael J. Mishak can be reached at 259-2347 or at michael.mishak@lasvegassun.com.

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Las Vegas Review-Journal
March 23, 2007

Porter: Yucca Mountain 'still alive'

By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Jon Porter took a big swing at Yucca Mountain spending this week. After failing to hit the nuclear waste project head-on, he aimed a followup blow against Democrats.

He also may have exposed a crack in what has been a united fight by Nevada lawmakers against the repository.

In the House Budget Committee late Wednesday, Porter, a Republican, promoted an amendment that would have put pressure on Congress to delete $494.5 million in 2008 spending for Yucca, the entire amount requested by the Energy Department.

It would have zeroed out Yucca Mountain from a nonbinding budget resolution, a Democrat-written blueprint lawmakers will consult when they pass spending bills later this year.

Porter argued the Yucca project was riddled with quality assurance problems and beyond repair. But Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., said the amendment was too far-reaching to be debated in five or 10 minutes. Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Texas, said the issue needed to be handled by the Appropriations Committee.

The amendment was defeated 23-12. Eleven Republicans joined Porter in voting for the amendment. Twenty-two Democrats and one Republican, Dan Lungren of California, voted to kill it.

"The real message is the majority of Republicans on this committee are saying time out and the majority of Democrats said move forward," on nuclear waste in Nevada, Porter said after the vote.

He said it underscored that Nevada has enemies in both parties when it comes to Yucca Mountain, not just Republicans.

"The reality is that Yucca Mountain is still alive," Porter said.

That is a different message than "Yucca Mountain is dead," that Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., has promoted.

When Porter put out a press release declaring Democrats "unanimously voted to keep the project alive," it ruffled feathers in the office of Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev.

She would have persuaded Democrats to vote against Yucca Mountain, but Porter did not invite her help, Berkley spokesman David Cherry said.

"Perhaps some Democrats would have come along had someone made an overture toward the senior member of the Nevada House delegation and its only Democrat."

As for the message that Democrats are pro-Yucca, Cherry said, "Dumping nuclear waste in Nevada has been a priority for President Bush since he took office in 2001."

Nevada lawmakers said other chances to attack Yucca funding will arise this year.

"Yucca Mountain is on its last breath and everyone knows it," a Reid spokesman said.

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Las Vegas SUN
March 23, 2007

Editorial: Beware: Yucca not dead

The lifeblood of this nuclear waste burial plan, federal money, is still flowing

Many horror movies reach their climax when the monster - human or otherwise - finally appears to have been killed but attacks again as people gather around to make sure. Could this be the case in Nevada's real-life horror story called Yucca Mountain?

Our story began in 1978 when federal scientists, responding to complaints from managers of the nation's nuclear power plants, began eyeing Yucca Mountain as a potential burial site for the plants' deadly nuclear waste.

In page-turner style, with Congress and President Reagan emerging as central characters, Yucca Mountain was singled out as the only site in the country to be studied for its potential to hold, virtually for an eternity, 77,000 tons of radioactive material.

With the mountain located just 90 miles northwest of fast-growing Las Vegas, the issue became a monster. But today, after successfully battling the project for more than 20 years, many leading Nevadans are calling it dead.

Las Vegas Sun reporter Lisa Mascaro, in a story this week, however, quoted Yucca experts who cautioned that it is not time for people to start gathering around just yet. Yucca lives, and could just lash out again.

Although the project has taken innumerable direct hits on safety issues, it is still drawing breath in the form of half-a-billion dollars a year from the federal budget.

Comments such as those made last week by outgoing Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner Jeffrey Merrifield show why Nevadans should not get complacent. The Energy Department, owing to safety issues raised by Nevada, has so far missed its deadlines to file an application with the commission for approval to operate Yucca Mountain. Even if the department misses its next deadline, set for June 2008, a "Plan B" could emerge, showcasing a new management scheme involving a "public-private" partnership, Merrifield told Mascaro.

Nevada must stay vigilant, as the federal government seems intent on proceeding, however slowly, with a Yucca Mountain dump despite all of the dangers posed by transportation and geologic storage. Scientists say storing the waste on-site - at the nuclear power plants where it is produced - in dry casks will be a safe alternative for at least the next 100 years. In our view, Congress should redirect the money now going to Yucca Mountain to that alternative. Only when Yucca's funding is shut down completely will it be safe to finally call this project dead.

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Las Vegas SUN
March 23, 2007

Q+A: Joe Biden

Unions, Yucca Mountain on candidate's radar

By Michael J. Mishak
Las Vegas Sun

Joe Biden is not the kind of guy to dodge the public stage.

So it was with good reason that Biden, the senior senator from Delaware and one of seven Democratic presidential contenders, canceled a trip to Nevada on Wednesday.

Biden was scheduled to speak to labor leaders and party activists at two events in Carson City, but he said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid requested that he stay in Washington for budget votes. Family commitments will keep him away from Saturday's presidential health care forum at UNLV.

Biden, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, spoke with the Sun by telephone about Nevada issues.

Q: How do you think you will do in Nevada?

Nevada is good for me. I have a natural constituency with the people likely to participate in the caucuses: organized labor. I have a 34-year record with labor that can't be surpassed by anybody in either party this time out. Whether I get the endorsements or not, I'm confident that I'll do well with labor voters.

Have you put down any roots here yet?

We've hired people, but we're waiting a few weeks so that we can roll out everything as a complete package, headquarters and all.

Danny O'Brien, my national political director, is a big help. He's got a lot of experience with Nevada campaigns and knows a lot of people. But it's not the same as having Harry Reid's son. (Clark County Commissioner Rory Reid is working on Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign.)

What's your understanding of Western issues?

I've been deeply involved with Yucca Mountain over the years. I'm aware of the water issues - how rapid development is sucking up all the resources. There's also what we call the sagebrush rebellion issues - federal lands, guns and open space.

But right now there's no distinction between the questions I'm asked in Jackson, Miss., and the ones I'm asked in Carson City, Nev. Everyone is consumed with the knowledge that we've been dug into a pretty deep hole, and they're looking for someone with a depth and breadth of national security experience, not just to deal with Iraq but with what's going to be a dangerous decade ahead.

Given Southern Nevada's explosive growth, should the Colorado River Compact be reformed?

We've had similar distribution issues with the Delaware River in my home state, but it's a much bigger problem for Nevada. In order to get a fundamental change and the federal government engaged, it needs to start with state negotiations.

How would you deal with the nation's health care crisis?

I would move immediately to insure all children under age 18, modernize medical records and provide catastrophic health insurance to lift the burden on the 46 million people who can't afford coverage.

I would also encourage states to move toward total health care coverage, and I'd have the federal government give them much more leeway in underwriting the cost. The way to get a national consensus for a major health care policy is to cherry pick the best ideas from the dozens of states doing their own.

Are you a gambling man?

No. I play nickel, dime and quarter poker games with my old buddies. I've found that I usually gamble with my future rather than gamble with my money. I like Las Vegas for the shows more than the slots.

--Michael J. Mishak can be reached at 259-2347 or at michael.mishak@lasvegassun.com.

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Grist Magazine
March 23, 2007

Why the sloppy love for nuclear?

Posted by John McGrath

During his marathon live-blogging yesterday, David "Boss-man" Roberts wrote about the GOP love of nuclear power: "Why are Republicans obsessed with this? It's mystifying. Don't they have anything else to talk about?"

Well, they love clean coal too. The question to me has always been why alleged conservatives have so much time for nuclear when it doesn't align with one of their cherished principles: If "big-government nanny-state market interference" had a poster child, the cooling towers of a nuclear plant would be it.

This is, after all, an industry that still traces it's lineage to the military-industrial complex. Created by the exigencies of war in a style of command economy that the United States didn't see again until the Apollo Program, the first atomic weapons in fact cost multiples more than landing a man on the moon. Later, as the U.S. Navy shifted to nuclear power and the arms races of the Cold War gathered steam, the military remained the dominant consumer of nuclear materials. Globally, military uses of uranium were not exceeded by civilian uses until the mid-1970s.

The mid-1970s were, as it turned out, the last best hope for a major nuclear expansion. With unprecedented spikes in the price of oil, France (as any nuclear advocate will endlessly tell you) embarked on a major expansion of its nuclear industry. How did France do this? With yet more nanny-state intervention, of course! Reactors were designed by the state, financed by the state, built by the state, and operated by the state. Permanent waste sites are similarly built and run by the state.

In the U.S., the story is similar but with some quirks. Often called the biggest single subsidy for the nuclear electric industry, the U.S. government insures every reactor built in the U.S. with taxpayers' money. (No private insurer will ever, ever risk a nuclear investment.) The companies that make civilian reactors also just happen to be able to rely on contracts from the U.S. Navy, which powers all its large ships with nuclear reactors.

And now we have Yucca Mountain, a long-term (and I mean long-term!) storage site for nuclear waste being built at taxpayers' expense in a location chosen for political expediency, not safety, efficiency, or even market logic. (Nevada apparently didn't have the sway in Congress to dump in another state.)

The sad truth (for the nuclear industry, at least) is that there's very little sign of change. The safer and more efficient reactors are even more obscenely expensive than current models (some $10,000 per kilowatt for prototype pebble-bed reactors, compared to a historic $4,000 for conventional models) and the nuclear industry cannot afford to finance its own insurance and waste disposal -- not without pricing its kilowatt-hours right out of the market.

All the same ... if, in the 1970s -- the time of the earliest warnings about climate change -- you had asked me to sign up for the French program, I probably would have supported it. (We'll ignore the fact that such a program might not have survived the Reagan Revolution in America, or the War on Deficit that followed.) Except -- and I don't know why this isn't obvious -- we don't live in the 1970s. Check it out -- it's 2007, there's not a bell-bottom to be seen, and we've got different and better options.

Efficiency is cheaper than coal or natural gas. Wind is cheaper than nuclear. (And in some countries, wind is already generating more power than nuclear! Viva!) By the mid 20teens, solar electricity will be cheaper throughout most of America than nuclear, and by 2020 it may be cheaper even in places like Syracuse, N.Y. Storage technologies will make renewables increasingly competitive with base load generation. (Consider what we'd rather Washington spend money on: storing radioactive waste, or storing heat and kilowatt-hours?) More efficient long-distance transmission will make the Midwest the new Middle East of energy. This could all be possible about the same time a nuclear reactor would come online, if we started building it yesterday.

Most of the renewable options are possible without government interference of anything like the same magnitude nuclear receives every hour of every day. Some will be possible without government interference at all, but I'm not a small-government fetishist. But so long as the the state is keeping its thumb on the scales, the market will not act rationally like it's supposed to, and as Republicans claim to believe it should.

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State of Nevada
Agency for Nuclear Projects
www.state.nv.us/nucwaste/
nwpo@nuc.state.nv.us
775-687-3744
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