Governors lobby Congress on Yucca

Friday, Oct. 22, 1999 | 11:54 a.m.

The National Governors Association told Senate Majority leader Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., not to weaken proposed radiation exposure standards for a high-level nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain.

The association issued a letter to Lott on Thursday opposing plans to transfer responsibility for setting radiation exposure standards from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

The governors objected to the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 1999, sponsored by Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, which removes the EPA from setting limits on radiation that is expected to leak from a Yucca Mountain repository, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Yucca Mountain is being designed as the nation's only nuclear waste dump and is expected to hold over 70,000 tons of high-level waste hauled from power plants and defense facilities across the country.

Four governors signed the letter. They are Gov. Michael Leavitt of Utah, who is the association's chairman; Gov. Kenny Guinn of Nevada, natural resources committee chairman; Parris Glendening of Maryland, association vice chairman; and Gov. Thomas Vilsack of Iowa, vice chairman of the natural resources committee.

The governors association approved a policy Thursday that takes the federal government to task for mismanaging and neglecting environmental contamination.

"Contamination and environmental degradation are the result of years of mismanagement and neglect," the governors wrote. "They reflect noncompliance with federal policies, unclear or inadequate laws and regulations, institutional attitudes that devalue environmental concerns and the reluctance of federal agencies to work with federal and state regulators."

Nevada officials have been fighting both the permanent repository at Yucca Mountain and an attempt by Congress for temporary nuclear waste storage at the Nevada Test Site. Murkowski removed a provision for interim storage at the Test Site, but his bill includes a section that allows the DOE to begin hauling highly radioactive waste to Yucca Mountain by 2007, instead of waiting until a repository is approved.

"Congress should amend applicable federal laws to ensure that all wastes, including radioactive wastes and munitions, are within the purview of state and EPA authorities," the letter said.

The governors association called for both the EPA and the states to have authority over radioactive wastes.

In August the association unanimously voted to reaffirm its position on EPA and state authority for radioactive wastes. While most nuclear reactors operate east of the Mississippi River, Yucca Mountain is in Southern Nevada and poses shipping routes through 43 states near 53 million people.