U.S. Chamber of Commerce urges pro-Yucca decision

Benjamin Grove

Thursday, Dec. 6, 2001 | 10:45 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. Chamber of Commerce today goaded Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham to make a decision about Yucca Mountain within 30 days.

At a press conference, officials from the Chamber's new pro-Yucca lobby team also responded to rhetoric from Nevada lawmakers. The lawmakers since last week have pointed to a draft copy of a congressional audit that was critical of the Department of Energy-managed Yucca project.

Abraham has questioned the fairness of the report.

"I'm not so convinced I should be concerned about a (General Accounting Office) report that was dismissed by the Department of Energy," said Bruce Josten, executive vice president of the U.S. Chamber.

The Yucca project is a proposal to bury the nation's high-level nuclear waste in tunnels under the mountain 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The DOE has been studying Yucca Mountain for years, and Abraham this winter is widely expected to recommend it to President Bush as a suitable site for a national waste burial ground.

But a draft copy of the GAO report on Yucca -- portions of which were released to the media by Nevada lawmakers last week -- recommended delaying the Yucca project indefinitely.

The GAO report said too many scientific studies at the site are still pending to make a decision.

Chamber officials refuted that. The report confuses what scientific data is necessary for Abraham to make his recommendation and what data is required for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to eventually license the waste site, officials said.

Today's event was part of a national pro-Yucca lobbying effort unveiled Nov. 15 by the U.S. Chamber's organization of nuclear energy-related members, called the Alliance for Energy and Economic Growth.

The alliance enlisted John Sununu, who served as chief of staff for former President George Bush, and former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, as its high-profile leaders. Ferraro did not attend today's event.

Sununu downplayed the GAO report and anti-Yucca messages delivered by Nevada lawmakers.

"Fortunately, when all the smoke clears, the fact is that these hollow attacks have not laid a glove on the key component of the pending decision -- namely the soundness of the science and the site characterization," Sununu said in his prepared statement.

Alliance officials also stressed that ratepayers who use electricity generated by nuclear power plants have paid about $20 billion for the government to develop a permanent nuclear waste dump. Roughly $8 billion of that has been spent on Yucca already.

Minnesota's two nuclear power plants face closure because state law has banned storage of waste on-site at the plants by 2007, Minnesota Public Utilities Commissioner LeRoy Koppendrayer said.

"(Yucca) is important to ratepayers who were willing to pay -- we have paid -- but now it is time to go forward and make a recommendation so we can get the waste moved," Koppendrayer said.

About a dozen Washington-based environmental and public advocacy groups protested today's press conference in front of the Chamber's headquarters, one block from the White House.

"We need to stop pouring money down the hole at Yucca Mountain," said Lisa Gue of Public Citizen, stressing that money should be spent on waste storage alternatives.

The Nuclear Information and Resource Service has started contacting chambers of commerce along truck and train routes that would be used to transport waste from plants nationwide to Yucca, NIRS spokesman Kevin Kamps said. NIRS wants to stress to local chambers the U.S. Chamber advocates shipping waste through communities nationwide, he said.

The Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce withdrew its membership with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over its pro-Yucca campaign. The national group did not contact the local Chamber while its energy arm was developing the pro-Yucca strategy.

The Las Vegas Chamber has had no contact with its former parent group since then, spokeswoman Catherine Levy said. The Las Vegas Chamber, one of the nation's largest local chambers, plans to donate the $3,000 in dues it would have paid the U.S. Chamber to an anti-Yucca effort, Levy said. That effort has not been decided, she said.

The local group hardly misses the minor benefits of being a U.S. Chamber member, Levy said.

Las Vegas Chamber officials had no comment on today's U.S. Chamber press conference, she said.

The U.S. Chamber has 3 million business members and 3,000 state and local chambers. The U.S. Chamber's services include lobbying Congress, fighting in court and offering member benefits and discounts, such as retirement and insurance plans.