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StumblePublished Monday, June 2, 2008 | 4:48 p.m.
Updated Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2008 | 10:15 a.m.
WASHIGNTON - It’s official: The Yucca Mountain license application will be filed Tuesday morning.
Rep. Shelley Berkley’s office just announced that the Energy Department has notified Nevada’s lawmakers in Washington that it plans on Tuesday file its long-promised application to license the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste in Nevada.
This was supposed to be a major milestone for the project. But as I wrote in Sunday’s paper , it may end up being yet another step on a route filled with political setbacks in a state that overwhelming opposes housing the nation’s nuclear waste 90 miles north of Las Vegas.
The application will be submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which has 90 days to decide if the proposal is adequate for review. If accepted, the license would undergo scrutiny in a years-long legal proceeding in a courtroom-like setting in Las Vegas. The review could stretch up to four years.
The Democratic presidential candidates, Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York and Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, have vowed to withdraw the application if elected. Presumed Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, has pledged to move forward with plans for the repository.
“Nevadans know a bad bet when we see one,” Berkley said, “and that is why we vehemently oppose the Bush-McCain Yucca Mountain plan and its decades of toxic radioactive waste shipments.”
“Nevada is not alone in this fight,” she added. “That’s why this submission should be seen for exactly what it is – an $80 billion goodbye present to the nuclear industry from President Bush at the expense of the health and safety of families in Nevada and nationwide.”
I was surprised to see that Lisa Mascaro seemed to be the only Nevada reporter at the DOE's press conference June 3rd to announce its submittal of the license application; at least, she was only one who asked the DOE Sectretary a question, and not a terribly provocative one at that.
What doesn't surprise me is Rep. Berkley's familiar politicizing of the issue by characterizing it as the "Bush-McCain Yucca Mountain plan" or an "$80 billion dollar goodbye present" from the current administration. Even I, a Democrat, wouldn't fall for that kind of raw-meat tactic.
The construction of a repository is a matter of law and has been since 1982, which brings up the question of what a president can do to overturn it. Bill Clinton had eight years in office; why didn't he overturn it, given the Democratic stance in general toward Yucca Mountain? And what could the now-presumptive nominee Barack Obama do to overturn it were he elected in November?
How can a president "withdraw" an application in direct contradiction to the Nuclear Waste Policy Act? It seems to me the only presidential power in this case would be a veto, but the law has already been passed. You might be able to overturn the existing law with new legislation, but that's the job of the legislative branch, which approved the original law and continues to support it.
As always, we hear this kind of stuff from our elected officials but never get the details. If Berkley and the rest of the Nevada delegation are going to continue to fulminate over the repository and issue sweeping declarations of outrage and aggrievement, they ought to at least give us some specifics....