Yucca Mountain News Clips
Thursday, October 25, 2007
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Senator Harry Reid
October 17, 2007
Reid Statement on Upcoming Yucca Mountain Hearing
Washington, DC— U.S. Senator Harry Reid of Nevada made the following statement on the announcement by the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works that it has scheduled an oversight hearing on the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump.
“This is the most important issue facing the state of Nevada. That’s why I’ve been working with the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works to schedule this hearing for the last few months. I am confident that the information that comes out of the hearing will shine a bright spotlight on the problems associated with this dangerous plan to transport 77,000 tons of nuclear waste across the country and turn Nevada into the nation’s nuclear dumping ground.”
The hearing is scheduled for October 31. Additional details about the hearing, including the list of witnesses, will be announced on October 24.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
October 25, 2007
Limits on waste at Yucca deflected
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Wednesday denied a Nevada request for limits on how much nuclear waste the government should be allowed to store above ground at Yucca Mountain awaiting burial.
The NRC said it is too early to get into the details of how the Department of Energy is designing a nuclear waste repository for the Yucca site. DOE plans to lay out its blueprints when it applies to the NRC next summer for a construction license.
"The issues raised by the petition are best addressed during the agency's review of the application, when a final design will be available," the NRC said in a notice posted in the Federal Register.
The Energy Department is designing concrete pads where highly radioactive used nuclear fuel from utility plants would be "cooled" over time in concrete and steel casks until they reach desired temperatures for burial within the mountain.
Nevada officials protested the pads are being designed to hold an unacceptably large amount of waste, possibly 21,000 tons. Nuclear waste would be sent to Yucca Mountain much faster than DOE could possibly move it underground, they said.
If problems develop with the underground repository, the dangerous material could remain above-ground indefinitely, increasing risks from plane crashes, missile strikes or earthquakes, state officials charged.
It is one of a number of issues where Nevada and the Energy Department are expected eventually to clash either through lawsuits or during NRC license hearings.
"I am assuming we will revisit this issue when DOE submits its license application," said Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
October 25, 2007
Gibbons says he was snubbed by Yucca Mountain Senate panel
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Gov. Jim Gibbons charged Wednesday that he was snubbed by a U.S. Senate committee inviting witnesses to testify next week at a hearing on Yucca Mountain.
The Democratic-controlled panel passed over the Republican governor, according to his aides and other sources in Washington. Instead, Catherine Cortez Masto, the attorney general and a Democrat, was invited to present the state's views on the nuclear waste repository at the Oct. 31 hearing.
"I was deeply concerned that I have not been invited to testify on behalf of the people of Nevada," Gibbons said in a letter sent Wednesday to Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., chairwoman of the Environment and Public Works Committee.
"For Nevada, the fight against Yucca Mountain has always been a bipartisan one," Gibbons wrote.
Neither Boxer nor committee aides could be reached on Wednesday night.
Gibbons aides in the past week called staffers for Boxer and for Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., expressing interest in having the governor testify at the hearing, which falls on Nevada's statehood anniversary, according to Melissa Subbotin, Gibbons spokeswoman.
"There is absolutely no reason why Governor Gibbons should not have been asked to participate in the hearing," Subbotin said. "He has remained at the forefront of the fight against the Yucca Mountain Project."
Reid suggested participants to Boxer and believed that Cortez Masto would be a strong witness, his spokesman Jon Summers said.
The hearing will focus on upcoming repository license issues and Nevada's ongoing legal fights against the project, Summers said, so "it was thought (Cortez Masto) would be an appropriate pick" as the state's chief attorney.
Summers insisted there was no partisan motive to invite Cortez Masto and not Gibbons. He noted Sen. John Ensign will take part as a Nevada Republican elected statewide.
Gibbons could have been invited by Republican senators if they chose, Summers added.
The Yucca Mountain hearing has gained an elevated profile as the first one on the topic sponsored by Senate Democrats since they took control of the Senate this year.
Among the senators expected to participate is Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., who has said she would kill the project if elected president.
Politics is threatening to overtake the hearing, said Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev.
"This is just disappointing and a slap in the face to Nevadans not to invite the governor who has fought against Yucca Mountain his whole career," Porter said.
"It appears to me this is a dog and pony show," Porter said. "This is not about personalities, it is about the future of our state."
The witness list has not been made public yet but it is said to include Reid, Ensign, Cortez Masto, Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., representatives from the Department of Energy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Environmental Protection Agency, the head of the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, and an environmental spokesman.
--Contact Stephens Washington Bureau chief Steve Tetreault at STetreault@ stephensmedia.com or (202) 783-1760.
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The Nation
October 25, 2007
Everybody Look What's Going Down
Katrina vanden Heuvel
There's somethin' happening here, What it is ain't exactly clear. There's a man with a gun over there, tellin' me I gotta beware. I think it's time we stop, hey, what's that sound, everybody look what's going down.
--For What It's Worth, Stephen Stills, 1966
It was nearly 30 years ago, in 1979, when Jackson Browne, Graham Nash, Bonnie Raitt and John Hall founded Musicians United for Safe Energy (MUSE) to fight against the use of nuclear power. They organized five exhilarating nights of No Nukes concerts at Madison Square Garden and led a rally of 200,000 people in New York's downtown Battery Park. Their efforts helped to channel public outrage in the wake of the Three Mile Island accident and strengthen opposition to Big Nuclear Energy.
Now, as Congress considers $50 billion in new loan guarantees to the nuclear industry over the next two years (it has already received nearly $10 billion from the Bush-Cheney Energy Debacle of 2005), as well as extended federal liability insurance, Raitt, Browne, and Nash have reunited to educate the public and a new generation about "what's going down" and advocate for a saner path. Along with Ben Harper and Keb Mo, the original No Nukes crowd cut a new music video based on Stephen Stills' For What It's Worth that links to a petition against the massive nuclear industry handout.
On Monday night, the musicians joined their MUSE co-founder -- now Congressman John Hall-- and performed for lawmakers who will be debating this critical Energy Bill that is intended to set us on a greener course. Tuesday, they were back on Capitol Hill lobbying against a "virtual blank check from taxpayers" to build new nuclear plants.
While Big Nuclear is touting a self-proclaimed "nuclear renaissance" and promoting the myth that nuclear energy will solve our climate change crisis, MUSE co-founder and Freepress.org/NukeFree.org editor, Harvey Wasserman, explains the top three reasons to oppose the "Nuclear Bailout" in this video. (A more extensive post by Wasserman on reasons for opposition is here).
In a nutshell, after fifty years since the first reactor was built in 1957, nuclear plants can't pay for themselves. Wall Street doesn't want anything to do with them --exorbitant cost overruns and construction problems continue to plague them -- so the industry is looking to Congress to foot the bill. Secondly, the risk of a terrorist attack -- or human error -- at these facilities is so great that the industry can't even get private insurance so, again, it looks to government to limit liability in case of a major accident. Finally, there is no safe way of dealing with high-level nuclear waste. Despite $11 billion public dollars spent on Yucca Mountain, there are still too many unanswered questions about how to safely contain waste that must be isolated for at least tens of thousands of years, if not longer-- according to Jon Block, nuclear energy and climate change project manager at the Union of Concerned Scientists. Block concludes in a recent op-ed that "any glowing description of nuclear power's benefits ignores serious issues of nuclear plant safety, security against sabotage and terrorist attack and waste disposal."
As to the notion that new nuclear plants are the answer to the climate crisis, Wasserman notes that greenhouse gasses are created in the mining, milling, and enrichment of uranium fuel; and that "huge plumes of heat" are emitted directly into the air and water by the reactors.
But, most importantly, one must completely ignore the devastating risks that these monstrosities pose to the environment, as the Natural Resource Defense Council writes, "The accidental release of radioactivity, whether from a reactor accident, terrorist attack, or slow leakage of radioactive waste into the local environment, poses the risk of catastrophic harm to communities and to vital natural resources, such as underground aquifers used for irrigation and drinking water."
Block also sees far better options than the nuclear one: "The most sensible strategy to reduce global warming is to quickly deploy the cleanest, fastest, lowest risk solutions first. Conservation and increased efficiency by energy producers and consumers are the cheapest and quickest measures by far. Likewise, a wide range of renewable energy resources, including wind, solar, geothermal and tidal power, have enormous potential and are inherently safe-and they would encourage economic development."
Thirty years after MUSE raised public-consciousness about the atomic madness of the 70's, it's good to see them back on the job fighting an absurd and illogical nuclear bailout in 2007. Like the song still says, "Stop-- everybody look what's going down." Don't accept the latest giveaway to corporate lobbyists, sign the petition today.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
October 24, 2007
Union members cheer Richardson's campaign pledges
Candidate speaks to plumbers convention
By Molly Ball
Review-Journal
Democratic presidential candidate Bill Richardson wasn't speaking to a local audience in Las Vegas on Tuesday, but it was a crowd he's hoping could help him in Nevada nonetheless.
Richardson addressed the national convention of the plumbers and pipefitters union, telling them he'd be a union-friendly president. The New Mexico governor was the only presidential candidate to address the convention at the Las Vegas Hilton of local officials of the union that has about 300,000 members nationally, with about 4,000 in Nevada.
Richardson told the United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters he had a 96 percent rating for supporting unions, "and I don't know where you guys screwed up 4 percent of the time."
He got standing cheers for pledging to appoint a union member his secretary of labor, for vowing to put a stop to "trade agreements that send jobs overseas," and for saying, "When I am president, I will fire all the union-busting attorneys at the Department of Labor."
Richardson also touted nuclear energy as a potential part of the solution for making the country energy independent, a stance he has downplayed in Nevada, where officials have battled for years to prevent other states' nuclear waste from being stored in the proposed Yucca Mountain repository.
"Nuclear doesn't emit greenhouse gases," he said. "You've got to deal with the waste. But we have to shift our reliance away from oil."
Richardson also played down his plan for a quick and total exit from Iraq and played up his support for wounded veterans. "Perhaps my number one priority that deals with disengaging from Iraq will be ensuring that our VA is fully funded," he said.
Acknowledging that he's not leading the polling for the Democratic presidential nomination, Richardson told the group they shouldn't believe it's a two-person race.
"States like Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina may have different plans. ... It's not the chattering class in Washington that's going to decide," Richardson said.
He added, "America loves underdogs. America loves dark horses. These little states that are so trained in electing a president, I believe they're going to send a message."
--Contact reporter Molly Ball at mball@reviewjournal.com or (702) 387-2919.
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Las Vegas SUN
October 24, 2007
Was Richardson for Yucca before he was against it?
Some say he 'set the stage' for use as nuclear waste dump
By Michael J. Mishak
Las Vegas Sun
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson is coming under scrutiny for how he has painted his position on Nevada's preeminent issue: Yucca Mountain.
As a seven-term congressman and former energy secretary, the Democrat has perhaps the longest record on the proposed nuclear waste repository of any candidate.
If elected, Richardson has said , he would not open Yucca Mountain, and instead would designate it as a national laboratory to solve the nuclear waste problem.
In May, Richardson boasted in a campaign statement that for more than 20 years "I have opposed the Yucca Mountain project."
That claim was challenged Tuesday from various corners, including by Bob Loux, executive director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects.
"I saw the Department of Energy putting reports together for Congress that said it was a very good site," said Loux, Nevada's point man in fighting Yucca Mountain.
Loux said the Clinton Energy Department "set the stage" for Yucca Mountain's designation as the nation's nuke dump.
One report in particular, dubbed a "viability assessment," confirmed the site as a suitable waste dump during Richardson's tenure, Loux said.
For the second time in a decade, in 1999, Nevada petitioned the energy secretary to disqualify Yucca Mountain on the basis of the department's own ground water guidelines. According to Loux, Richardson declined, saying the department lacked sufficient information and was still studying the site.
"Perhaps in his own mind he did (disqualify the site), but we didn't see any evidence of it ," Loux said. "The opportunity was there."
The issue surfaced in a Denver Post report Tuesday, and Richardson was later confronted on his record during a taping of the public affairs TV show "Face to Face With Jon Ralston."
Richardson said he supported a far-reaching appropriations bill in 1987 that narrowed the nuclear dump choices to Nevada because the legislation more importantly included funding for health care, pensions and defense. The bill later became known as the "Screw Nevada bill" for targeting the Silver State with high-level nuclear waste.
"How can I vote against Medicare ?" Richardson asked Ralston . "You're finding (fault with) a vote on an overall bill. I don't recall any 'Screw Nevada bill.' Bill Richardson has always been with Nevada on stopping Yucca Mountain."
Richardson said he subsequently voted against the project "five or six" times in Congress, and highlighted his record as energy secretary.
"I am the one, because of science reasons, who said we're going to decide whether we open Yucca on science, not politics," he said.
Richardson said he stopped a move to validate Yucca as the nation's nuclear waste dump because of water concerns, and suggested the country examine storing the waste at regional sites.
During the TV appearance, Richardson repeatedly invoked the name of Richard Bryan, a former Nevada governor and senator during Richardson's tenure as energy secretary.
Bryan defended Richardson on Tuesday.
"In the 12 years I was in Washington, D.C., from a Nevada perspective, he was the best energy secretary we had," Bryan said. "He was faithful to the policies of the Clinton administration."
He said although Clinton did not categorically oppose the Yucca project, he had two broad principles: The administration would not compromise on health and safety standards, nor approve Nevada as a temporary waste dump.
Nevada Sen. Harry Reid took a pass on the issue. " Senator Reid is not going to get into dissecting the candidates' records," spokesman Jon Summers said . "What's important now is halting the dump. Voters can decide for themselves who's going to do that."
A Senate hearing on Yucca Mountain, requested by the Democratic front - runner, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton, will be held next week. The rest of the Democratic field also opposes storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain.
Michael J. Mishak can be reached at 259-2347 or at michael.mishak@lasvegassun.com.
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Las Vegas SUN
October 24, 2007
Jon Ralston on facts of Richardson's record on Yucca
"For more than 20 years, in Congress and as secretary of energy, I have opposed the Yucca Mountain project."
- Democratic presidential hopeful Bill Richardson, May 24 campaign release
When I first questioned the New Mexico governor in February about his false characterization of his nuclear waste dump record, he retorted that I had "wrong facts." But facts, as a man (John Adams) who once held the job Richardson seeks knew, are stubborn things, although apparently not quite as stubborn as the Democratic candidate.
You would think that a man running a "Nevada or bust" campaign, a man who has been here more than any other White House contender, would not pump himself up on this, of all issues, so someone could come along to deflate him.
But on Tuesday, here and in Colorado, Richardson's balloon was finally pricked, the air rushed out of his inflated characterization and the facts of his dump record were revealed: First, as a congressman, he supported the most infamous pro-dump legislation; and then, as secretary of energy, he was an enabler of a policy to study only the Nevada site and helmed an operation that moved along construction of the facility.
Richardson, as first disclosed by former Las Vegas journalist Susan Greene in The Denver Post on Tuesday, voted for the "Screw Nevada bill" in 1987, the measure so named because it short-circuited the intent of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act by narrowing the dump choices from three to one. The move was seen as the first and most egregious of many steps in putting politics over science .
As Nevada politicians squealed about the unfairness - one aide to then-Gov. Richard Bryan called it a "gang-rape mentality" and Sen. Harry Reid pessimistically called it "the end of the road" - Richardson voted for the bill. That is a fact.
Richardson, as he told Greene, said Tuesday on "Face to Face" that he voted for the measure because it was part of an omnibus bill that contained many worthwhile projects. Consider this exchange during what was a very contentious interview:
Richardson: "That's a bill that contained money for pensions, for Medicare, for defense."
Me: "It's the Screw Nevada bill!"
Richardson: "There is no such thing."
Tell that to Bryan, Reid and then-Reps. Jim Bilbray and Barbara Vucanovich, both of whom spoke out against the measure, and to voters here he is now trying to convince that he is one of them. This was no overwhelmingly popular bill Richardson supported 20 years ago - it passed 237-181 - and he was part of the Screw Nevada majority. That is a fact.
Nevertheless, Richardson continues to portray himself as a friend of the state on the dump, frequently speaking in absolute terms and obdurately refusing to acknowledge his true record. Richardson claimed Tuesday that as secretary of energy he "disqualified the site" because of concerns about water. If the site is disqualified, what has been going on since the Clinton administration?
Richardson also loves to play up President Clinton's veto of the site, often without mentioning that was for interim storage. Clinton and Richardson deserve credit for that veto because interim storage was a move designed to, like the 1987 legislation, change the intent of the existing law to force Nevada to take the waste early.
But, ironically, in making the case in front of Congress during his tenure against the interim storage legislation, Richardson argued that the permanent dump project was proceeding. On March 12, 1999, he told a subcommittee that the dump "was on the right track and cited several recent accomplishments, including the completion of a 5-mile tunnel through Yucca Mountain," according to a summary of his testimony.
Yes, Richardson argued that sound science should take precedence over politics - where have we heard that before? - but he did nothing to slow down the dump. And when given the opportunity as DOE boss to do what he claimed Tuesday he had done - disqualify the project - he declined, despite written entreaties from two Nevada governors - Bob Miller and Kenny Guinn. That is a fact.
"To be truthful and honest, he (Richardson) didn't do anything to slow this thing down," Bob Loux, the state agency head who might know more about the fight against the dump than even Bryan or Reid, told Greene.
Richardson was not nearly as hostile as DOE bosses to come - Hazel O'Leary and Spencer Abraham, to name a couple. But the way he has portrayed his record on Yucca Mountain is misleading, disingenuous and, ultimately, false.
And that's a fact.
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El Defensor Chieftain
October 24, 2007
Community Calendar
Wed/Oct. 24
Materials Engineering Seminar, 2 p.m. — Jones 106. C.V. Robino, of Sandia National Laboratories, speaks on "Development and Metallurgy of a Gadolinium-Containing Alloy for Spent Nuclear Fuel Disp[osal int he Yucca Mountain Repository."
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KMVT
October 23, 2007
Yucca Mountain One Step Closer To Taking Nuclear Waste
U.S. Department of Energy officials have taken another step toward opening a high level nuclear waste repository in Nevada. Three and a half million documents about the proposed underground facility have been formally certified.
The documents contain scientific data, studies and geological analyses that will be used for upcoming license hearings. The Yucca Mountain site is considered key to the DOE making good on it's contractual promises to move high level nuclear waste out of Idaho. It's expected that DOE officials will file the formal application to build the repository late next June.
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AP Guardian
October 23, 2007
Richardson Courts UA in Vegas
By Kathleen Hennessey
Associated Press Writer
LAS VEGAS (AP) - New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson told a building trades union on Tuesday that he would be an activist president on behalf of labor unions if elected.
The governor and Democratic presidential candidate made his case before a meeting of the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipe Fitting Industry. The group is nearing a decision about an endorsement.
``I want you to know that if I were elected president, just as I've been an activist governor and an activist secretary of energy, I will be an activist president on your behalf,'' he said.
The union, known as the UA, has about 300,000 members nationwide, and 5,000 in Nevada, where Richardson hopes a strong showing in the Jan. 19 caucus will bolster his candidacy.
Courting the building trades can be tricky for some Democrats in the race.
The union supports expansion of the nuclear industry and the opening of a nuclear waste storage dump at Yucca Mountain, a project 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas that promises hundreds of new jobs but is opposed by most of the state's residents and public officials.
Union members also trend more conservative on the Iraq war, gun control and abortion rights.
On energy, Richardson promised to push for a ``broad breadth of options.'' He emphasized his support for biodiesel, biofuels and included nuclear energy among the options.
``Nuclear today, it doesn't emit greenhouse gas emissions. We have to deal with the waste issue,'' he said.
In previous stops in Nevada, Richardson has described himself as ``not a proponent'' of nuclear energy. Asked Tuesday to clarify his position, the governor said he thinks ``nuclear power is an option. I have felt that it doesn't emit greenhouse gas emissions. I'm not crusading against it.''
As energy secretary during the Clinton administration, Richardson allowed the plan to store 77,000 tons of radioactive waste at Yucca Mountain to progress. He now says he's opposed to it because of safety concerns and wants to convert the facility to a laboratory to research nuclear waste disposal.
UA General President Bill Hite said he liked what he heard from Richardson and said energy issues would be central to the union's endorsement.
Hite said he would not endorse former Sen. John Edwards because of his opposition to nuclear energy.
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SiliconValley
October 23, 2007
Nuclear energy - clean, safe, cheap - should be embraced
By Christine Todd Whitman
Ten years ago, Google wasn't a verb, iPod wasn't a household name, and nuclear energy wasn't a prominent part of the energy debate. But times have changed. Not only have we been changed by the birth of the iPod, but we have significantly changed our national dialogue and embraced the rebirth of nuclear energy.
As we consider how we are going to meet future energy demands while also being kind to the environment, it is clear that the energy discussion requires a practical approach instead of relying on the emotional arguments of the past.
The question is this: Which sources of energy are we using today that we know we can count on tomorrow? To deliver the electricity we'll need while working toward a clean, healthy environment, part of the solution must include an increase in nuclear power.
Americans as a whole are very supportive of nuclear - a recent poll by Bisconti Research found that 83 percent of those polled think nuclear energy will play an important role in our country's future energy policy. But largely due to a lack of knowledge about nuclear energy, a few concerns remain: Is it clean? Is it safe? And is it affordable?
Nuclear energy is clean. It is the world's largest source of emission-free energy. Nuclear energy produces no nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases.
In addition, the nuclear energy industry is the only industry that manages and accounts for all of its waste.
Instead of using the environment to store energy production byproducts - by pumping it in our atmosphere, for example - the residual spent nuclear fuel is solid in form and is contained safely in steel-lined, concrete vaults.
In addition, advanced technologies, such as those proposed under the Department of Energy's Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) initiative, are being developed to reprocess and recycle used nuclear fuel. The goal of these new technologies is to decrease the volume, heat and toxicity of used fuel while also recovering valuable energy. (Used fuel still contains 90 percent of its original energy.)
Under any used-fuel-management scenario, however, we must have a permanent repository in which we can dispose byproducts. Congress and President Bush have approved Yucca Mountain, Nevada, as the site of a federal geologic repository for spent nuclear fuel. We must move forward with Yucca Mountain to ensure safe storage for spent fuel produced by nuclear facilities throughout the United States and remain an example within the energy industry of waste management accountability.
It is safe. The nuclear industry adheres to the highest regulations of any American industry. Nuclear plants provide some of the safest working conditions for their workers of any industry. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says it is safer to work at a nuclear power plant than at a typical factory in the manufacturing sector.
And in a state where earthquakes are a major safety concern, Californians can rest easy knowing that U.S. nuclear plants are built to withstand earthquakes of a magnitude equivalent to or greater than the largest known earthquake for the region where they are located.
Furthermore, U.S. plants are built with a "defense-in-depth" philosophy that uses multiple safety barriers and redundant, physically separated safety systems to ensure public health and safety even in severe circumstance, like earthquakes.
Finally, it is affordable. While building a new reactor requires a considerable investment, once a nuclear power plant is online - and there are 104 reactors operating today in this country - nuclear energy actually has the lowest cost to produce electricity of any expandable electricity source. In 2006, the average cost per kilowatt-hour was 1.72 cents, while coal was 2.37 cents, natural gas was 6.75 cents, and petroleum was 9.63 cents per kilowatt-hour.
No matter how we do it, adding more capacity to our current electricity grid will cost money. Clearly, investing in a clean and efficient source of power that has low daily operating costs makes tremendous sense.
As the dialogue continues to evolve, our thinking about energy solutions needs to evolve as well. When we move away from past emotional responses to nuclear energy and take a thoughtful look at the facts today, nuclear energy emerges as a practical solution for our future.
--Christine Todd Whitman is the former governor of New Jersey and Environmental Protection Agency administrator. She is co-chair of the CASEnergy Coalition, a nuclear energy advocacy group. She wrote this article for the Mercury News.
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Denver Post
October 23, 2007
Richardson's stand against dump for Nevada doubted
He voted to use Yucca Mountain for nuclear waste but says he long opposed such a move.
By Susan Greene
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson voted in support of a nuclear waste dump at Nevada's Yucca Mountain, calling into question his claims that he has opposed the project for two decades.
"To be truthful and honest, he didn't do anything to slow this thing down," said Bob Loux, executive director of Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects.
Yucca Mountain dominates the agenda in Nevada, where voters overwhelmingly oppose a federal plan to bury the nation's high-level nuclear waste inside a mountain 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
Like many Western states, Nevada long has gone ignored in races for the presidency.
But now that its caucuses have been moved up to Jan. 19th, candidates are flocking there.
All eight Democrats have pledged to kill the Yucca Mountain project. They include Barack Obama and John Edwards, both from states seeking storage for their spent radioactive materials.
Richardson today is scheduled to make his 19th whistle stop in Nevada.
"For more than 20 years, in Congress and as Secretary of Energy, I have opposed the Yucca Mountain project," he said in a press release in May.
Records show that during his stint in the U.S. House, he voted for a December 1987 measure that picked Yucca Mountain as the only proposed site for the repository. The law is known in the Silver State as "The Screw Nevada Bill."
"If you were wrong on it, you're dead here," said Las Vegas adman and Democratic adviser Billy Vassiliadis.
Calling his track record on the dump "lengthy and clear," Richardson's campaign noted that the 1987 measure was part of a larger budget bill funding health care, pensions and other national programs.
"This was 'must pass' legislation to continue funding the government," said spokesman Tom Reynolds.
Nevada since has spent more than 19 years fighting the proposed dump, arguing that it would create huge risks from shipping radioactive materials along railroads and highways - some in Colorado. The former Rocky Flats weapons plant and two other Colorado sites have produced waste that, if approved, would be dumped in Yucca Mountain.
So far, the federal Department of Energy has spent at least $9.5 billion on the project, which it claims is necessary for consolidating the dangerous radioactive materials.
Much of that spending came during the Clinton years, when Richardson served as energy secretary from 1998 to 2001. Though he opposed temporary storage in Nevada until Yucca Mountain was determined to be scientifically acceptable, his department approved millions of dollars in contracting work and issued a report validating the site's suitability as a dump.
Some of those studies since have been criticized by a federal review board.
Dump opponents note that during Richardson's reign at DOE, one of its contractors issued a memo perceived to attempt to help the nuclear industry lobby for the proposed dump. The document, they say, called into question the professed objectivity of Richardson's department.
While none see him as a cheerleader of the project, some activists say he blurred his record.
"Did Yucca Mountain go forward during his term as secretary of energy? Well, they drilled, they spent money, they studied. ... I'd say it went forward in a big way," said activist Bob Fulkerson.
"I don't recall any real visible opposition until he started running for president," said geologist Steve Frishman, who advises Nevada on nuclear projects.
--Susan Greene: 303-954-1589 or sgreene@denverpost.com
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Washington Post
October 23, 2007
Seeing the Ethics Rules, and Raising an Exception
By Jeffrey H. Birnbaum
Shhhh! Don't tell anyone, but lobby groups are plotting all sorts of ways to get around the new ethics rules.
Lobbyists and their lawyers don't want to talk publicly about these "workarounds," a.k.a. clever cheating. But privately I've collected a few of the likely ways that lobbyists will continue to stay close to lawmakers while not outright breaking the law.
Most of these are still in the planning stages, so consider this an early heads-up.
The new statute bars lobbyists from taking lawmakers on trips. But lobby groups, particularly corporate lobbyists, are checking to see whether they can partner with colleges and nonprofit foundations to provide free travel to lawmakers despite the ban. The rules allow universities and charities greater latitude in providing the benefit.
Along the same lines, lobbyists, who are banned from organizing travel for lawmakers, are thinking about asking their assistants to do it -- an action that would skirt the prohibition.
The new law generally limits "fact-finding" trips by organizations with lobbyists to a single day. That would seem to make it hard for the Nuclear Energy Institute, the lobby for the nuclear industry, to sponsor its oft-taken trips to the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste disposal site in Nevada.
Not so. Those trips can still go on, the association says. Although the organization is still double-checking with ethics lawyers in Congress, it is confident that lawmakers and staffers can "travel on Monday, do their tour on Tuesday and travel back on Wednesday," a spokesman said. In other words, not much change.
In order to continue providing meals for lawmakers and their staff members, a few lobbyists are considering inviting their government guests to a happy hour, ordering drinks and chips, and calling the event a reception -- the kind of widely attended party that the rules still allow.
Small fundraisers might also proliferate as a way for lobbyists to provide dinners to lawmakers. A few lobbyists could invite a congressman to a restaurant, hand him checks for his reelection and then pay for the meal. The tab would be permitted as an in-kind contribution to the reelection effort.
Then there's the perfect storm of workarounds: the out-of-town fundraiser. A corporate political action committee could underwrite a lawmaker's travel to a lovely spot as long as a fundraising event is held there. That sort of thing already happens, of course, but it will probably occur a lot more, because campaign-related events are covered by a separate set of laws than those that deal with lobbying.
Happy trails!
--Please send e-mail to kstreet@washpost.com.
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Patriot-News
October 22, 2007
TMI down for refueling
Garry Lenton
The Patriot-News
The atomic reactor at Three Mile Island went off line today for refueling and maintenance, plant operator AmerGen Energy announced.
Nuclear plants shut down every two years to replace fuel and perform maintenance that can not be done when the reactor is running.
To reduce the impact on the Pennsylvania Maryland New Jersey power grid, shutdowns are scheduled for fall or spring when demand for electrify is lowest. TMI Unit 1 generates enough electricity to heat about 300,000.
The shutdown kicks off a labor-intensive review of the plant's mechanical systems. More than 13,000 inspections and maintenance activities will be conducted during the two- to three-week period the reactor is off line, officials said.
The shutdown creates about 1,500 temporary jobs in the region, most taken by nuclear workers who travel from plant to plant working during outages.
About a third of the plant's fuel will be replaced. The spent fuel will be stored in a large pool of water next to the reactor building. All of the spent fuel ever used at the facility, including that from the Unit 2 reactor destroyed in the 1979 accident, are kept at the site because a permanent storage location has yet to be built.
The U.S. Department of Energy is developing a national high-level nuclear waste storage site at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. It has yet to open.
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Las Vegas SUN
October 21, 2007
Richardson: Brilliant or bumbling, or both?
Western values, common touch might appeal to voters - if he can break habit of gaffes
By Michael J. Mishak
Las Vegas Sun
Bill Richardson has a lot on his mind this morning.
The New Mexico governor and Democratic presidential aspirant is sitting at the head of an enormous marble table in his Santa Fe briefi ng room. He’s surrounded by his 22 Cabinet secretaries — about half again the size of a president’s Cabinet. (Richardson had to enlarge the table after taking offi ce in 2003. The Albuquerque Journal reported that when New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer saw the table , he asked where King Arthur sat.)
As the secretaries bring Richardson up to speed, he seems distracted. He fi ddles with his BlackBerry and pages through briefi ng binders, his legs bouncing furiously underneath the table. Then a staff member reports on the state’s fl oat for the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, Calif., on New Year’s Day.
“That’s three days before the Iowa caucus,” Richardson quips, grinning. “I don’t think I’ll be able to make it. But stay on this.”
Back to the BlackBerry.
The process continues, with the multitasking Richardson cracking jokes, asking questions, giving orders.
“I got a list of your pet projects,” he tells his transportation secretary. “A lot of nickeland- dime stuff in there. Cut it down.”
“Don’t forget the Indians,” Richardson says to another Cabinet member, glancing back to make sure an out-of-state reporter is listening. “We’re the only state that has a Cabinet-level position for Indians.”
The meeting, last Monday, runs an hour and 45 minutes, short by Richardson standards. But time is precious. He needs to interview eight candidates for a state Supreme Court vacancy, hold a legislative strategy session, meet with an ethics task force, stage a campaign event and attend a fundraiser - all before heading out for a week of campaigning for president.
For 10 months, Richardson's presidential campaign has been downgraded by the national media , which have described him as a good choice for vice president. The celebrity and sheer cash of Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and, to a lesser extent, former Sen. John Edwards, have overshadowed what many observers regard as the best resume of anyone running in either party.
Richardson spent nearly two decades grabbing mostly positive headlines as a hard-charging congressman, U.N. ambassador, freelance international negotiator and U.S. energy secretary. He leveraged his experience to the governorship four years ago. Yet he never managed to establish a national profile.
On this day, however, Richardson senses his moment. Iraq has provided an opening - and the media are paying attention.
"They're finally recognizing me," he tells contributors at the fundraiser in Belen, N.M. "I've got good moves. We're rising in the polls. Things are looking up."
With that, he heads to New York for an interview with CBS News' Katie Couric and a meeting with the New York Times editorial board.
• • •
Richardson says he didn't get his first real itch for the White House until 2004, while campaigning for Democratic nominee John Kerry. He filed it away.
A month before Richardson's reelection last year, while on a train campaigning along the Rio Grande, Chief of Staff Dave Contarino predicted his boss would win 69 percent of the vote.
Richardson told him he was crazy. Sixty percent was the state's record.
But Contarino said Richardson was favored by 70 percent of independents and 40 percent of Republicans.
"You know, I think we ought to look at the big one," Richardson replied.
Thus, the unofficial presidential campaign began. Richardson told his advisers to draw up a plan, one that would address the fundraising challenge, and he began raising his national profile.
As chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, he campaigned for his party's candidates across the country , including Nevada state Sen. Dina Titus in her failed bid for governor.
In the end, Richardson won reelection with the predicted 69 percent of the vote, drawing support from a solid majority of independents and many Republicans. "For a Democratic governor to get that kind of support in a red state spoke to him being in touch with people's values," Contarino said.
It is the argument at the heart of Richardson's presidential campaign. He tells voters he can bring "new real estate" into the Democratic column, particularly in the formerly red Intermountain West.
"The people of the West are looking for executive leadership," Contarino said.
And presumably, in Richardson's view, the West also favors a Westerner.
Enter cowboy Bill.
As governor, Richardson often wears jeans and cowboy boots in the office and on the campaign trail. He made the bolo tie the official neckwear of New Mexico. In an ad for his reelection campaign, he wore sheriff's garb as he rode into town on a horse, dismounted, strode into a saloon and said, "Get me a milk." He then rode into the sunset.
Quite a transformation for a guy who in 1978 moved from Washington, D.C., to New Mexico in an Alfa Romeo, an Italian sports car.
The son of a New England banker and a Mexican mother, Richardson grew up in Massachusetts and Mexico City - but spent most of his early professional life in Washington. He moved to New Mexico because he wanted to run for Congress. In his memoir, he recalls telling his wife, "I need to be from somewhere."
By then, he knew he loved the game. "I'll freely admit I persisted in student politics not because of any idealism, but because I was good at it and found I enjoyed it tremendously," he wrote in his memoir. Politics, he says, filled the void after dreams of a baseball career died.
Richardson chose New Mexico in part because of its large Hispanic population. He made his first House run in 1980 and lost by less than 1 percent of the vote. Two years later, he won the right to represent the state's new 3rd Congressional District.
If not a Westerner by birth, Richardson quickly took to the region's sensibilities. What is a Westerner?
"It means that you're for individualism," Richardson says. "You're entrepreneurial. You're for protecting what is most essential in the West - land, air and water. You're libertarian when it comes to civil liberties. You want limited government in your daily life, in your sexual orientation, a woman's right to choose. Government should not tell you about your personal behavior."
Richardson won the National Rifle Association's endorsement for governor and was the only Democrat invited to speak to NRA members in Washington last month.
Richardson says he understands Western values and issues better than his rivals. On a recent trip to Nevada, he eagerly ran through the state's issues, interjecting between questions, "What else? What's next?"
On nuclear power, Richardson would eliminate federal subsidies for the nuclear energy industry, redirect incentives to renewable energy technology and get "all of our best brains" to solve the nuclear waste disposal issue. But he would not rule out building more nuclear plants.
Yucca Mountain, he says, is not the answer to the waste problem. Richardson voted against the proposed repository as a congressman. As energy secretary, he stopped a move to open Yucca after learning of environmental concerns.
Asked about the Southern Nevada Water Authority's plans to pump water from rural Nevada to Las Vegas, Richardson deflects the controversial plan with a laugh - then launches into his plan for a national water summit. Richardson said he would bring states together to talk about a way for water-rich northern-tier states to help with shortages in the Southwest.
He says he would reward better land-use planning in cities with additional federal highway funds and provide incentives for light-rail projects to ease traffic congestion.
On energy, Richardson says he is leading by example. New Mexico adopted Kyoto Protocol standards on greenhouse gas emissions, and must get 20 percent of its power from renewable energy sources by 2010. Richardson eliminated taxes on hybrid vehicles and boosted the state's renewable energy industry with tax incentives. New Mexico formed a renewable energy transmission authority to sell wind and solar energy to other states.
As president, Richardson would push for a requirement that the nation's utilities derive 30 percent of their power from renewable sources by 2020. He would cut the demand for oil by 50 percent and push fuel economy standards to 50 miles per gallon.
He says Nevada is squandering an opportunity if it doesn't capitalize on its potential for wind and solar farms.
On mining, Richardson says he supports reforming the 1872 Mining Law , particularly the provision that allows the government to sell public lands to mining companies for less than $5 an acre. But reform efforts would have to balance environmental protection with economic development, he says.
• • •
At a strategy session in his Santa Fe office, Richardson chews on red-rimmed glasses as a half-dozen advisers debate the political fallout of pushing ahead with health care reform in the state.
Richardson pledged in 2002 that every New Mexican would have coverage within four years, but his effort has been piecemeal. He is now pushing to consolidate state agencies that provide coverage and pressing for insurance reform aimed at covering people with preexisting medical conditions.
His advisers say the costs and the aggressive timetable make legislators nervous.
"Politics," he huffs. "Is that the only thing holding this back?"
The consensus is yes.
"Who cares," he barks. "We need to do this."
Health care in New Mexico cannot be at odds with the coverage plan he is proposing for the entire country in his presidential campaign, he says.
The scene illustrates two large truths about Richardson. He is not above bending New Mexico to suit his presidential aspirations. And he has a strong hand.
"He likes to be in the driver's seat," says Lonna Atkeson , a political scientist at the University of New Mexico. "There is leadership in the state and we're going in a certain direction - but if you don't agree with that direction, it can seem a little autocratic."
Hence his nickname in some quarters, "King Bill."
One of Richardson's first acts as governor was to demand resignation letters from every member of the state's 300 boards and commissions. He turned down those from people he thought were doing good work.
He required new regents to file undated letters of resignation, a practice the attorney general said was unconstitutional. And he has called legislators back for special sessions, jolting sleepy Santa Fe into a diet of all-nighters.
"There's no downtime with the governor," says state Sen. John Grubesic, a Democrat and frequent Richardson critic.
A common refrain is that Richardson brought Washington politics to the state, which allies see as a good thing and critics deride. He has proved adept at horse trading for the sake of progress. But Grubesic and others say the downside of compromise is that Richardson punishes those who won't.
So far, Richardson's agenda has won broad praise, even from The Wall Street Journal 's editorial page and the conservative Cato Institute. His first move as governor was to cut the personal income tax from 8.2 percent to 4.9 percent and chop the state capital gains tax in half.
On the campaign trail, however, he has drawn mixed reviews, even as his standing has crept higher. He has made gaffes large and small, telling an audience of gays and lesbians at a candidate forum that being homosexual is a choice and closing an impassioned speech to the Service Employees International Union political conference by thanking the wrong union.
Richardson says many of those mistakes have come because the longest presidential campaign in American history is taking its toll.
"It's dizzying. It's intense. It's nerve - racking," Richardson says. "But I love it.
"I've made some mistakes. People say, 'Why did you say that about the gays ?' There are two answers. One, I thought it was a trick question. The second is that I was really tired. I'd flown all night. It's not an excuse. It was a contributing factor."
Barbara, his wife of 35 years, has noticed a difference. Richardson takes a day off about once a week - but often ends up in his Santa Fe office, working on New Mexico business, aides say. Barbara Richardson says her husband has called from the campaign trail to complain of exhaustion. "It's grueling," she says. "You have to learn all the local issues. That wasn't part of the other campaigns."
For his part, Richardson, an avid boxing fan, says he realized something was amiss in May when he found himself campaigning in New Hampshire instead of attending the big fight in Las Vegas between Oscar De La Hoya and Floyd Mayweather Jr. (In an interview, he mistakenly identified De La Hoya's opponent as Owen Beck.)
Whatever the cause, Richardson comes across at turns as sharp, goofy, competent and bumbling. Reporters tell stories about being on the receiving end of head butts, and one account from Salon.com in 2005 has him making an obscene finger gesture in jest at a news conference.
After a series of stumbles, Richardson says he has become a better candidate. "This is my first race for president. You learn as you run. You learn about the country. You learn to be a better campaigner. You learn about the issues. You get more disciplined. So I had a learning curve."
With Iraq as his signature issue, Richardson is picking up steam. He is polling in the low single digits nationally - 4 percent, according to a recent USA Today/Gallup poll. But he has reached double digits in some polls in Iowa and Nevada, two states early on the primary election calendar. He hopes to surprise in those January contests, building momentum before the Feb. 5 Super Tuesday primaries .
His solution in Iraq stands in sharp contrast to those of his Democratic rivals - and , some say, damages his chances of winning the general election. He advocates withdrawing all U.S. troops immediately, leaving no residual forces. The stance appeals to the liberal activists and anti-war wing of his party, but might hurt him with independent voters.
"I feel very strongly about it because American kids are dying, and there's no end in sight," Richardson said. "We have a president who doesn't listen and a Congress that's not fighting."
His touts his experience as President Bill Clinton's U.N. ambassador, freelance negotiator and energy secretary: "I know the region. I've talked to the leaders. I went head to head with Saddam Hussein. I know what I'm talking about."
Reminded of the infamous meeting with Saddam, during which Richardson inadvertently offended the Iraqi dictator by showing him the sole of his shoe (an Arab insult), the governor explains with a smile: "Yeah, I screwed that up. But I was tired then too."
Michael J. Mishak can be reached at 259-2347 or at michael.mishak@lasvegassun.com.
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Las Vegas SUN
October 21, 2007
Jon Ralston chats with Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama on serendipity, Hillary Clinton and breaking the GOP stronghold on Nevada
When I suggested to Barack Obama that no one would find it credible that he happened to arrive at Culinary headquarters Thursday just as the union was settling with downtown casinos, he had a simple explanation.
"I believe in serendipity," the Illinois senator and presidential candidate said, with a smile.
If ever a statement encapsulated a campaign, there it was. Obama must actually believe he is the right man at the right time to take the leap of faith from being a state senator three years ago to try for the White House - needing to hurdle Hillary Clinton, latent and overt racism and the Republican nominee to get to Pennsylvania Avenue.
During a 30-minute car ride from the union headquarters to his speech venue at Cheyenne High School, Obama talked with great facility about Nevada and how it fits into his campaign for change. (Much would be written about his speech focusing on Iraq, how he was prescient and how, in mostly oblique references, Clinton was wrong. That I had heard a time or two. So I focused on more parochial issues.)
I asked Obama, admittedly with mischief in my heart, why he was even bothering with Nevada, a state he appeared to disregard earlier in the race, because Clinton (who is scheduled to be here today) seemed to have it locked up with her roster of endorsements, lead in the polls and ability to get an Environment and Public Works hearing convened on Yucca Mountain.
That last item caused the senator, who had been talking calmly and efficiently, to become animated. You could almost discern a shift in body language, in tone, when he says Clinton's name - or tries, less successfully these days, to avoid saying it.
"If the standard for getting stuff done was holding a hearing, we wouldn't have too many problems in this country," he retorted, clearly chafing at the notion that Clinton had a stronger position or knew more about any Nevada issue than he does.
Obama said he believes that here and elsewhere Clinton "is the default candidate. People have fond memories of the Democratic Party of Bill Clinton. It's a good brand. While they are still settling on making up their mind, it's not a bad place to park your vote."
That, of course, discounts the segment of the Democratic electorate that feels tremendous loyalty to Clinton. But Obama, executing a plan similar to what he is doing in Iowa, thinks he can overcome that at the grass roots.
"In a place like Nevada, where there is a premium on organization, I guarantee you we have the best ground game of any campaign in this state," he averred, citing precinct captains, volunteers and the 400 people who signed up for the caucus at his Reno event last week.
Obama also argued that his message might be ideally suited for Western states, especially Nevada. "There's not a lot of patience in the West for ideology," he said. "I think folks in the West are much more concerned with results, practicality, common sense. That suits my style of politics. I'm not coming from the tradition of spending all my time bashing Republicans."
I'm not sure whom he could be referring to.
Obama said he has found Nevadans to have "more independence ... You can talk to folks who are Democrats but conservative on some issues. You can talk to some conservatives who are libertarian and upset about the encroachment on the Constitution."
Obama also insists he is the man to change the almost unbroken, four-decade string of GOP nominees taking Nevada. (Only Bill Clinton, thanks to Ross Perot, has won Nevada since Lyndon Johnson.) Having visited a place such as Elko, Obama believes that some Democrats will make "the chronic mistake" of ignoring rural areas and not realizing they have to turn a 5-to-1 loss into a 2-to-1 margin of defeat. He also argued that, unlike other candidates (yes, we know who), he could get some Republicans there and elsewhere to vote for him.
Perhaps. But as John Kerry in '04 and Dina Titus in '06 showed, that strategy may be quixotic.
Obama would first need to upset Clinton and win the nomination. And if Nevada plays a role, so will the Culinary. That endorsement could still prove pivotal in who wins the state come Jan. 19.
And if I were Hillary Clinton, I might wonder if it really was serendipity that found Obama at the union hall last week or whether it was an omen.
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Reno Gazette Journal
October 21, 2007
Q & A with Bill Richardson
Anjeanette Damon
Reno Gazette-Journal
Question: What are your thoughts on the stepped up enforcement raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement?
Answer: It's ludicrous. It makes no sense. It shows we have a broken immigration system and enforcement-only will not work. There has to be enforcement and legalization ... One, you've got to secure the border. That means double the number of border patrol agents. That means keeping the National Guard longer. That means detection equipment so that nuclear material doesn't get through. The second thing is those that knowingly hire illegal workers should be punished and fined. Third thing is you have a tough conversation with Mexico. They're our friends. We should be able to be frank with them ... Fourth, is a path to legalization. That's not amnesty. It's not citizenship. But it's a path.
Q: Should they cease the raids?
A: Yes, they should. Until there is a national comprehensive immigration plan, instead of having these ICE raids, the Congress and the president should go back and pass comprehensive immigration reform.
Q: How would you describe the Hispanic vote?
A: First of all, the Hispanic vote is not automatic. It's not monolithic. It's predominantly two-to-one Democratic, but President Bush made inroads in the last two elections. But it's going to head in this election to be predominantly by large margins to the Democratic Party, because Republicans are perceived to be anti-immigrant with their legislation and with their rhetoric.
Q: You're against the nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, but why wasn't the project halted while you were Energy Secretary?
A: What do you mean halted? Well, I wasn't going to close it down. But when I was secretary they couldn't bring the waste in, and I stopped that. Because there was a determination there were serious water problems.
Q: Why weren't you going to shut it down?
A: Well you can't shut it down. There are thousands of jobs there. I want to make it a national laboratory. I want to make it into a research facility. I wouldn't have it as a depository. I would switch it's focus. We cannot expand nuclear power in this country until we figure out what we are going to do with the waste. The two options on the table are unworkable ...
Ask (former U.S.) Senator (Richard) Bryan who was his biggest ally in making sure it didn't move forward? Why don't you ask (former U.S.) Senator (John) Edwards why he voted for it? Check the record. I don't need to defend that.
Q: What about the people who think you are going to be vice president?
A: They haven't seen the first vote. It's three months away. There's not going to be a coronation. This race isn't over.
Q: You're very polite to your opponents, though. Is that your typical campaign strategy or are you gunning to be vice president?
A: I'm positive. I don't want to be vice president. I'm going to go back if I don't win and enjoy three years of the job I love as governor of New Mexico. I've been in Washington. I've been in the cabinet, in Congress. I don't need to go back to Washington unless I'm president. Why doesn't anybody accept that?
I have said some things differentiating myself from (U.S) Senator Clinton. I want to get all the troops out. She wants to keep 75,000 in. She wants to have it both ways in Michigan. I want to preserve the sanctity of Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada. I'm for scrapping no Child
Left Behind. She wants to reform it.
Q: Why haven't you opted into the public finance system?
A: Because it would leave me defenseless between the time I win the nomination and the time general election starts. I couldn't spend any money. Because it limits me how much I can spend in Nevada and how much I can spend in Iowa. Why should I when my fundraising has been reasonably good.
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Pahrump Valley Times
October 21, 2007
More Symbol Than Substance?
Yucca hearing offers Clinton a venue
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- A Senate committee Wednesday announced an upcoming hearing on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project, allowing Sen. Hillary Clinton to claim credit for delivering on a presidential campaign promise made to Nevadans over the summer.
The Oct. 31 hearing will be the first Senate airing of the proposed waste repository since Democrats took control this year. The Environment and Public Works Committee that is organizing the session is headed by Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., a repository critic.
The hearing is likely to have political undercurrents as well.
Clinton, D-N.Y., sits on the committee and is expected to take part in the hearing. She has sought to position herself as the strongest voice against the unpopular Nevada program among Democrats running for president in advance of the state's party caucuses next January.
"Sen. Clinton has been working actively with the committee to schedule this hearing," said Rory Reid, Clark County commissioner and chairman of Clinton's campaign in Nevada. "No other candidate for president has stood as strongly on this issue as Sen. Clinton."
The hearing will likely provide Clinton and other repository opponents a fresh forum to criticize the controversial program. While it is being held in a Senate committee room, the intended audience members really are voters in Nevada, said Eric Herzik, a political scientist at the University of Nevada, Reno.
"It is possible that something substantive could come out of this, but Yucca Mountain has been discussed for more than 20 years and the sides are pretty well drawn," Herzik said. "This makes me think it will be more symbolic than substantive."
Committee aides and other Senate officials said witnesses are being invited and will be announced next week. The environment committee has jurisdiction over the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the Environmental Protection Agency, so it is possible those agencies will be represented, officials said. One outstanding question is why the EPA is taking so long to issue required radiation safety standards for the project. Agency officials had promised Congress the standards would be released by the end of last year, and they now are 10 months late and counting.
Possibly project managers from the Energy Department and spokespeople for the environmental community also could be invited, they said. It was not clear whether Gov. Jim Gibbons is being invited to speak or to send a representative.
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said he has worked with Boxer to schedule the hearing "for the last few months. I am confident the information that comes out will shine a bright spotlight on the problems associated with this dangerous plan."
Most elected leaders in Nevada oppose the proposed repository that is being designed to hold 70,000 or more tons of highly radioactive used fuel from commercial power plants and other forms of nuclear waste. They say they consider the venture unsafe and have little trust in the Department of Energy to look after the health and safety of Nevadans.
Clinton has sought to portray herself as the state's biggest ally among presidential candidates.
If she wins, Clinton said, "I will not go forward with Yucca Mountain. My administration will not proceed with Yucca Mountain."
It was not clear Wednesday what role if any Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., Clinton's perceived main rival in Nevada for the Democratic nomination, would play in the hearing. "Senator Obama does not need hearings to know he does not support Yucca Mountain," an aide said. "To the extent this hearing will help raise public awareness, he supports it."
Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., said he challenged Clinton to try to kill the Yucca project outright.
"The Democrats are in charge and the Democrats have done nothing to kill the project," Porter said. "Why is she going to wait to see if she wins? If she is sincere, she has the authority now."
"This is precisely why she requested this hearing," said Hilarie Grey, Clinton's campaign spokeswoman in Nevada. "There are many public safety issues and health issues that have not been addressed, and she wants to be sure those questions are asked right now. Sen. Clinton has been a consistent opponent of Yucca Mountain."
Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., noted the hearing will take place on Nevada Day, the Oct. 31 anniversary of the state's admission to the Union in 1864.
"Nevada's flag reads 'Battle Born' and we will keep fighting Yucca Mountain and those -- like President Bush -- who want to see the Silver State turned into the nation's nuclear garbage dump," Berkley said.
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KOLO
October 20, 2007
Yucca Mountain Project Steps Forward, Documents Certified
Department of Energy officials have taken another step toward opening a Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site.
3.5 million documents about the planned nuclear waste dump were formally certified yesterday.
The documents contain scientific data, studies and geological analyses that will be referenced during upcoming license hearings.
More than 30 million pages are posted online.
The certification starts a clock ticking on the project's next phase.
By law, federal officials can apply to build a nuclear waste repository at the Nevada site six months after the backup documents have been certified.
DOE officials have pledged that their application will be ready by June 30.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
October 20, 2007
Key Yucca documents posted
DOE officials: Application requirement met
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Department of Energy officials on Friday took another step toward opening a Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site when they formally certified an online database containing more than 3.5 million documents.
The scientific data, studies and geological analyses posted at www.lsnnet.gov include key documents that will be referenced during upcoming license hearings, the DOE said in an announcement. More than 30 million pages are posted online, the announcement said.
The certification starts a clock ticking on the project's next phase. By law, DOE officials can apply to build a nuclear waste repository at the Nevada site six months after the backup documents have been certified.
DOE officials have pledged that their application will be ready by June 30.
The actions on Friday suggests officials might be running ahead of schedule and could file by April. Two weeks ago, the department issued two major draft environmental impact studies for the project, which DOE officials said further signified progress, although many other funding and scheduling challenges remain.
Yucca documents have been posted to the database, known as the Licensing Support Network, in large batches over the past several years.
Analysts and attorneys hired by the state of Nevada, which is fighting the project, have been scrutinizing the documents looking for holes.
State officials have said they suspect key material still might be missing, setting the stage for a new legal fight. The state has 10 days to file a complaint with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
"We will undertake an immediate review of the database to confirm its completeness or lack of completeness," state attorney Charles Fitzpatrick said Friday. "If we conclude it is incomplete, we will take the necessary action."
The Energy Department tried to certify a Yucca document database in 2004, but it was thrown out by judges at the NRC for being incomplete.
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Slate
October 20, 2007
Solving "Fission Impossible"
Is nuclear power's comeback for real?
By Daniel Gross
We all know that $30-a-barrel oil isn't coming back, just as we know that simply turning off a few lights won't halt global warming. Yet the search for a low-emission, nonfossil-fuel source of energy has been a bit like American Idol: One after another, fresh-faced alternative-energy-rock-star wannabes are eliminated. Wind and solar are nice and clean—but the sun doesn't work 24/7, and the wind is fickle. Ethanol offers politicians the irresistible combination of grow-your-own energy independence and the potential to make Iowa primary voters rich. But because it's corrosive and soluble in water, it's hard to transport ethanol over long distances through pipelines. And to raise a crop sufficient to meet our gasoline thirst, we'd have to plant the entire continental United States with maize, leaving only a small corner of Delaware for bedrooms and a den.
As contestants are eliminated, it's worth looking at the geezer in the bunch: nuclear power. Last month, nearly 50 years after the Shippingport Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvania became the first commercial power plant to go online, the New Jersey-based utility NRG filed papers seeking permission to build a nuclear power plant in Texas. This represents the first such new application since 1979, nuclear's annus horribilis. Two weeks after the debut of the fear-inducing nuclear-disaster flick The China Syndrome, life imitated art, as the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania suffered a partial meltdown. That effectively forestalled the creation of new nuclear power plants for a generation. The last reactor to come online was the Watts Bar reactor in Tennessee, in May 1996.
So, what's changed? Twenty-eight years of safe operation (in the United States, at least) have helped pave the way for NRG and for a couple of dozen other possible plants in the works. Indeed, even as they're mocked in popular culture—see The Simpsons—the nation's 104 commercial nuclear-generating units have been quietly humming along without significant incident. "The Bureau of Labor Statistics will tell you that the nuclear industry is the safest place to work—safer than real estate and Wall Street," says former New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman. (You remember her—she played the environmentalist in the first Bush term.) Through the first half of this year, nukes provided 19.8 percent of U.S. electricity generation, about the same proportion as they did in 1990.
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
October 19, 2007
Utilities unsure about nuclear waste canisters
Interest in casks hinges on Yucca Mountain's fate
By Steve Tetreault
Stephens Washington Bureau
WASHINGTON -- Utilities "have a healthy level of skepticism" about multipurpose canisters the Energy Department is proposing to ship nuclear waste to a planned Yucca Mountain repository, in part because they are unsure about the project's future, an industry official said Thursday.
Executives are worried about incorporating the canisters into their nuclear waste handling on the chance the Nevada site ends up scrapped by Congress or the next president, according to Kristopher W. Cummings, a manager for Holtec International, a nuclear equipment manufacturer.
Energy Department officials have said they plan to negotiate "incentives" for utilities to accept the "transportation, aging and disposal," or TAD, containers that could be adapted for shipping highly radioactive spent fuel and eventually burying it in the repository planned for 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
"The utilities see the political environment, and they are like, what if I go two years and load TADs and then all of a sudden Yucca Mountain is not going to happen?" Cummings said. "I will have a TAD that is Yucca Mountain-approved, but there is no Yucca Mountain to send it to."
Cummings, who is Holtec's manager of DOE programs, made the comments following a presentation to the Advisory Committee on Nuclear Waste and Materials, a panel that advises the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Yucca Mountain technical matters.
"Incentives from DOE will dictate whether TADs are implemented," Cummings said in his presentation.
Getting nuclear power companies to accept the TAD canisters illustrates yet another challenge facing the Department of Energy as it pushes to license a Yucca Mountain repository. The DOE, on its Web site, maintains the TADs will be "simpler, safer and more cost-effective," but it has yet to persuade the utilities to buy into them.
Cummings said the most significant concern among utilities is that the TADs would be smaller than the containers they now use for on-site nuclear waste storage. More casks would need to be loaded, more time would be needed to load more casks, and "more casks mean more cost."
Utilities "want to see real progress being made," Cummings said. "I think DOE is getting there, but there is still some concern among utilities."
About 7,500 canisters would be needed to fill Yucca Mountain to its 70,000 metric ton capacity, DOE officials have said. They would be constructed of borated stainless steel, would be between 15.5 feet and 17.5 feet long with a diameter of 66.5 inches, and weigh 54.25 tons fully loaded.
"The TADs will certainly work," DOE spokesman Allen Benson said.
As for whether a repository will be open to accept them, "we are on schedule to submit a license application to the NRC which includes the TADs," he said. The DOE has set a June 30, 2008, application goal.
Holtec is one of four companies working on TAD designs for the Department of Energy.
The New Jersey-based firm is trying to interest DOE and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on a design that would allow nuclear waste awaiting final burial at Yucca Mountain to be stored temporarily in below-surface boreholes rather than on more conventional above-ground pads.
Cummings said such a layout would better shield waste canisters from earthquakes and from airplane or missile crashes, and would require less space at the site.
"We brought that to DOE and said we think it would be good for the repository site from a technical basis," he said. The DOE has yet to comment.
When Cummings began talking about politics surrounding Yucca Mountain and the opposition from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., the committee chairman, Michael T. Ryan, cut him off.
"I want to remind you this is a technical committee," Ryan said. "Move along."
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Las Vegas Review-Journal
October 19, 2007
Visit to Cheyenne High School: Obama points to new way
Clinton's views on foreign policy 'conventional'
By Molly Ball
Review-Journal
Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on Thursday criticized rival Hillary Clinton for actions that he said contributed to an apparent drumbeat for military confrontation with Iran.
"Senator Clinton thinks in very conventional terms when it come to our foreign policy," he said in an interview while visiting Nevada.
"I think that's part of what led her to authorize the war in Iraq. It's what led her to vote for the Kyl-Lieberman amendment. She and I have had disagreements about the need for aggressive presidential diplomacy when it comes to not just talking to our friends, but also to our enemies."
The Senate recently voted to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard a terrorist force in a measure, the Kyl-Lieberman amendment, that Clinton supported. While Obama missed the vote, he opposes the move, he said, because it appears to be "a rationale for keeping troops in Iraq and a justification for an attack on Iran."
Clinton has defended her vote by saying the amendment is intended to put diplomatic pressure on Iran and thus avert, rather than provoke, a military conflict. But Obama, who opposed the Iraq war before it began, has sought to parallel the Iran vote with the Iraq war authorization in 2002 that Clinton also voted for.
The time is past for such thinking, the Illinois senator said. "It's a question of how much we want to break away from the legacy of the Bush administration and start to repair the damage that's been done."
Obama on Thursday held a rally in Reno, then flew south, hosting about 1,500 supporters at Cheyenne High School in North Las Vegas. It was his eighth visit to Nevada.
The Las Vegas speech focused on "the lessons of Iraq, and how we not only bring an end to the war but more importantly prevent making mistakes in the future."
Asking his audience's forgiveness for a lengthy discourse on foreign policy, Obama, standing in front of a gigantic U.S. flag that hung from the ceiling, made many of the same points about "conventional thinking," but without naming Clinton.
The audience was patient, if not wildly enthusiastic, during this lecture. But when, after going into detail about his withdrawal plan, Obama repeated, adamantly, several times, "I will end this war," he drew a standing ovation.
Obama spoke for about half an hour and took a few questions afterward, including one from an 11-year-old girl on gasoline prices. He brought the answer back partly to his main theme: "Part of the reason that gas prices are high is because the world market is anticipating another war in the Middle East."
With his top rival showing no signs of relinquishing her lead in the polls, Obama appears to be the only one not worried about whether he still has a chance, in Nevada or in general. In the interview, he said his timing would be right.
"Our strategy has always been to not win an election in September but to win it in January, February and March," he said. "We feel very good about the direction we're going."
A recent Review-Journal poll showed Clinton with a double-digit lead on Obama among likely Democratic caucus goers, by a margin of 39 percent to 21 percent. But Obama pointed out that an R-J poll in May had him at 12 percent. "If we keep going up 9 (points) every month, we're going to be doing pretty good," he said.
Clinton has sought to burnish her Nevada credentials by scheduling hearings of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on the proposed nuclear waste repository at Nevada's Yucca Mountain. All of the Democratic candidates are opposed to the project, while the Republicans either are in favor or have not taken a clear position.
Obama said it was "great that we have hearings," but having rejected the idea of the dump, "what I'd want to spend time on is what the alternatives are going to be as opposed to focusing on simply the past." Asked if he would attend, he said, "It depends whether I'm in Washington or not."
And if he is in Washington? "I am not on the environment committee, but I've made my position on Yucca very clear. I think the people of Nevada can be confident that as president, I'm going to be looking for different options for storing nuclear waste."
Contact reporter Molly Ball at mball@reviewjournal.com or (702) 387-2919.
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Las Vegas SUN
October 19, 2007
Yucca Mountain project posts key notice about document network
LAS VEGAS (AP) - The federal Energy Department says it's met a requirement to open its collection of documents supporting plans for a national nuclear waste dump in Nevada.
The declaration "certifying" the electronic Licensing Support Network is a key step toward applying for a license to operate the Yucca Mountain project.
The department plans to make that license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by June 30.
Congress in 2002 picked the Yucca site about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas to entomb 77,000 tons of spent nuclear reactor fuel.
Project director Edward F. "Ward" Sproat III says the LSN contains more than 30 million pages and more than 3.5 million scientific, geologic and engineering documents.
--On the Net: Nuclear Regulatory Commission Licensing Support Network: http://www.lsnnet.govs
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HCN Goat
October 19, 2007
“Time constraints” at Yucca Mountain
Filed under: Bad Judgment, Nuclear issues
Marty Durlin
The Associated Press reports that the state of Nevada has petitioned the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to ban Sandia National Laboratories from working on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project.
The state claims that one of Sandia’s managers, Geoff Freeze, indicated in a memo that meeting a deadline for paperwork was more important than ensuring that the facility will keep nuclear waste safe for at least ten thousand years.
If a June 2008 deadline for the application to the Department of Energy isn’t met, “we are all out of a job,” Freeze wrote, according to a copy of the memo obtained by Nevada. He also noted “three priorities – schedule, defensibility, credibility – in that order” must be satisfied. “Any slips in schedule must be recovered by cutting scope. There is no allowance for not meeting schedule.”
In the state’s petition to the NRC, Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto retorted, “Common sense and experience teach that a plan which puts schedule ahead of defensibility and defensibility ahead of genuine scientific credibility is a recipe for disaster.”
Sandia heads the team of scientists analyzing the Yucca Mountain site, where the US government plans to bury more than 70,000 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive waste, currently stored at more than a hundred sites around the nation.
Yucca Mountain is a ridge of volcanic rock located about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The plan is to excavate tunnels 1000 feet below the surface of the mountain and 1000 feet above the water table, and bury the radioactive waste there, in sealed, corrosion-resistant metal containers.
The DOE was slated to open Yucca Mountain by 1998, but the project has now been pushed back to 2017. The cost estimate, originally $57.5 billion, is now more than $77 billion.
The Sandia Labs, hired in January 2006 to prepare a “performance assessment” of Yucca Mountain, received $123 million in the most recent fiscal year, and will receive $75 million in 2008 for its work on the project.
Among the many questions, researchers are trying to determine how much water will reach the repository over the next 10,000 years, how quickly the nuclear waste casks will corrode, and at what rate radioactivity might contaminate surrounding areas.
Other concerns include earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and meteorite impacts.
Nevada has filed seven NRC petitions regarding problems with Yucca Mountain since 2002.
Freeze’s memo is another in a string of unfortunate remarks from officials and bureaucrats about the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project. For example, there’s the EPA’s, “Our moral responsibility diminishes on a sliding scale over the course of time” and a DOE employee’s, “If they need more proof, I will be happy to make up more stuff.”
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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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