The Las Vegas Sun
www.lasvegassun.com
Nevada stance a threat to dump
By Benjamin Grove
March 28, 2001
Nevada's dogged opposition to opening a nuclear waste tomb
in the state is a serious threat to the program's success,
a Senate leader on energy issues said Tuesday.
"We have a political problem with the state of Nevada
that is serious with reference to the state's fighting the
federal government," Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., told
the House Energy and Power subcommittee.
Domenici, a leading nuclear energy advocate, appeared
as a witness during a House hearing on the role of nuclear
power in America.
His comments seemed a change from prior views about the
likelihood of constructing a nuclear waste burial ground
at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Last
year he predicted the nuclear waste could be bound for Nevada
within months if George W. Bush was elected president.
"What he (Domenici) was probably alluding to was
the campaign by Republicans and Democrats from the Nevada
delegation to put the brakes on this thing," said Nathan
Naylor, a spokesman for Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev.
"Before we talk about the future of nuclear power,
we need to figure out what to do with the waste," Naylor
said.
At one point in the hearing, Domenici said a long-running
feud between the Environmental Protection Agency and the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission over safe levels of radiation
release at Yucca Mountain also threatened the project.
"So long as you have two differing opinions ... I
don't think it can be built." Domenici said. "That's
the hangup as I understand it."
Despite waste complications, several lawmakers said the
current "energy crisis" made this a perfect time
for nuclear power to make a comeback. Nuclear power generated
at the nation's 104 nuclear reactor plants produce roughly
20 percent of the nation's electricity and is an important
part of "energy mix," which also relies heavily
on coal and natural gas, lawmakers said.
But no new nuclear plants have been commissioned since
1979 in the United States. That's partly due to strict licensing
rules and public fears over nuclear accidents following
the Three Mile Island disaster, which happened on March
28, 1979.
A key focus of the hearing was the significant obstacle
to nuclear power expansion -- waste.
Congress in 1987 selected Yucca Mountain to be the final
resting place for 77,000 tons of the nation's high-level
waste. The mountain has been the subject of years of safety
studies, scheduled to be released this year. Many nuclear
energy officials consider Yucca's completion, slated for
2010, key to their future because the nation's nuclear plants
are "choking" on their nuclear waste stored on
site.
House Energy Subcommittee chairman Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas,
said he planned to hold hearings on Yucca's completion during
the "first half" of this year. Barton is an active
proponent of the Yucca plan and nuclear energy.
"If a federal solution is not found soon, some plants
will be forced to close -- not because of problems with
the plants but because of laws dealing with waste,"
Barton said. "That means our electric reliability is
threatened."
Barton called nine panelists to testify at Tuesday's hearing
-- eight were government or industry officials who support
nuclear power.
"They hammered me on nuclear waste," Anna Aurillo,
of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, said after her
testimony. She was the lone anti-nuclear activist invited
to speak at the hearing. "I told them I didn't like
the industry's proposals, that they ignored health and safety
standards and are not based on honest or sound science."
Nevada lawmakers have long opposed burying waste in the
state. In her latest strike, Rep. Shelley Berkley. D-Nev.,
on Tuesday compiled a list including members of Congress
who will have nuclear waste traveling on trains and trucks
through their districts. Berkley's move was designed to
build political opposition to the Yucca plan. She posted
the routes on her website, www.house.gov/berkley.
Berkley and Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., this week also sent
"Dear Colleague" letters to fellow House members
urging them to back the EPA in its turf battle with the
Nuclear Regulatory Commission over which agency should set
radiation safety standards. The EPA standards are more strict:
nuclear utilities support the more lax NRC standards.
"Radiation protection standards should be based on
the most stringent requirement of human health and protection
of the environment, not the lowest common denominator of
the nuclear industry," Gibbons and Berkley wrote.
Gibbons and Berkley were not invited to testify at the
hearing, despite Berkley's request to appear.
Nuclear energy officials said they were enjoying renewed
interest in nuclear power among government officials and
Congress.
"I don't believe it's an overstatement to say that
a foundation is being put in place for a renaissance in
nuclear power," said Alfred Tollison, vice president
of the Atlanta-based Institute of Nuclear Power Operations,
an industry group formed after Three Mile Island to promote
safety and reliability.
Department of Energy officials have been working "somewhat
behind the scenes with the NRC and the (nuclear) industry"
to expand nuclear power capacities, said William Magwood,
director of the DOE office of Nuclear Energy, Science and
Technology.
Several industry officials spoke about futuristic designs
already drafted for a new generation of nuclear power plants.
Nuclear power produces "safe, reliable and low-cost"
energy, but the industry needs government help to make it
cheaper and easier to construct and license new plants,
said C. Randy Hutchinson, vice president of Energy Nuclear
Inc.
"Will new nuclear plants be built? Yes, we think
so." Hutchinson said, "but only if and when we
can bring some certainty to the industry. And you, as our
nation's policymakers, can help to establish that certainty."
Tuesday's congressional hearing was one in a series examining
proposals for a comprehensive energy policy for America.
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