Congressional delegation joins gov in backing nuke projects office

Tuesday, June 16, 1998 | 5 a.m.

The funding request, to keep the Agency for Nuclear Projects operating into the next fiscal year, will be discussed June 25 by the Legislature's Interim Finance Committee.

"The bipartisan support of the Nevada congressional delegation in Washington shows how important this issue is to Nevadans," Miller said.

The delegation's letter says a federal Department of Energy decision to withhold funds for the agency "represents a blatant attempt to silence the state of Nevada's oversight entity."

Continued state funding "will communicate to Congress and the commercial nuclear power industry that Nevada cannot be intimidated by the heavy-handed methods employed by DOE," the letter adds.

The state office, established in 1983, had received millions of dollars in federal funding to monitor a study of Yucca Mountain, the DOE's preferred dump site, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

But Congress cut off funding from the office beginning 1996 after a DOE audit alleged that the state was improperly spending the money on such items as public relations.

The DOE concluded that the state agency improperly shared public information with other states about scientific findings at Yucca Mountain.

The federal government charged that Nevada passed information indicating that Yucca Mountain was an unsafe location to dump nuclear waste, and that thousands of shipments of dangerous waste would pass through their communities.