Friday, May 11, 2001 | 11:15 a.m.
WASHINGTON -- Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., is playing hardball with President Bush over radiation standards for a proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain.
Reid, the top Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee, on Thursday said he would try to block federal nominations reviewed by the committee unless Bush approves a strict radiation safety standard for the proposed nuclear waste site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The committee votes on Bush nominations to the Environmental Protection Agency, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and several other agencies. About a dozen nominees will be pending in the coming weeks, including four next week. Among them is Linda Fisher, nominated to be EPA deputy administrator.
"We need to finalize these standards, and I will use every means at my disposal, including blocking these nominees, until this rule is published," Reid said.
Reid said he didn't know if he would be able to successfully block the nominees on the 18-member committee, evenly split between Democrats and Republicans.
At issue are health and safety standards at Yucca Mountain. It's the only site being studied to hold 77,000 tons of nuclear waste. The Energy Department is conducting the studies and would build the repository if it is approved.
No one doubts the stored waste would release radiation. The question is how much would be safe? The Environmental Protection Agency and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission disagree.
The EPA backs a standard that allows someone to be exposed to 15 millirems of radiation, with a four millirem limit in ground water. The NRC says a 25 millirem standard is safe, and sets no separate limit for ground water. A chest X-ray is roughly five millirems.
Backers of Yucca Mountain say the EPA standard is so strict it could kill the project. That's why Nevada officials like it, and nuclear industry officials don't.
"I have the responsibility to protect the safety and health of Nevadans, including ensuring that the vital ground water resources beneath the proposed nuclear waste repository do not become contaminated," Reid wrote in a letter to Bush on Thursday.
The EPA has legal authority to set the standard, and former President Bill Clinton's EPA administrator, Carol Browner, submitted the EPA's numbers to the Office of Management and Budget on Jan. 19, a day before Bush moved into the White House. It has been under Bush review since. Bush must sign off on it for it to become official.
Reid said he was disturbed by reports this week that high-level discussions among EPA, NRC and DOE officials were under way to weaken the standards. Reid said agency officials had told him about the meetings. He added that nuclear energy officials have been lobbying heavily to weaken the standard.
"I have every confidence that the administrator of the EPA will do the right thing," Reid told reporters Thursday. "But she is getting pressure."
At a Senate Environment Committee meeting this week, Reid scolded NRC officials, who said they had a right to comment on the issue.
"I am convinced that you are doing more than just commenting and I don't think it is appropriate," Reid said.
The energy trade publication Energy Daily this week reported that Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and EPA Administrator Christie Whitman had met on the issue.
But Abraham and Whitman have not met, and don't plan a meeting specifically to discuss the radiations standards, DOE spokeswoman Jill Schroeder said. However, both serve on the energy task force led by Vice President Dick Cheney, and it is unknown if they discussed the issue at their regular meetings, Schroeder said. EPA and NRC staffers are involved in "ongoing" meetings on the issue, but wouldn't offer any details about the meetings.
Nuclear energy industry officials have not been directly involved in any meetings about the standards, Nuclear Energy Institute spokesman Mitch Singer said. NEI backs the NRC standard, calling it a "more appropriate level" in a position paper.
EPA spokeswoman Cathy Milbourn confirmed EPA, DOE and NRC staffers have been discussing the issue. She declined to say how committed Whitman is to the current standard.
Asked if there has been any pressure put on the EPA by either the DOE or the NRC, Milbourn replied, "If there is, it is not going on in the public arena."
James Taft, in charge of EPA drinking water standards, said he had been in some earlier staff discussions over the proposed standard. "I have been included in some of the discussions and could not comment at this time," he said, referring inquiries to Whitman's office.
Environmentalists say they consider the EPA standard a bare minimum. If it were a truly effective repository, Yucca would release no radiation, Public Citizen's Lisa Gue said. A ground water standard is vital, she said.
But the rule has implications beyond the Yucca repository, Gue said. "This is a precedent-setting standard," she said, adding that both commercial nuclear reactors and DOE research reactors would fall under the stricter ground water limit, if it is approved.
Gue said EPA officials had told her high-level meetings between EPA and the DOE were ongoing to change the EPA standard.
"That's an indication of the pressure that the DOE and the NRC seem able to exert in this new administration," Gue said. "Unfortunately, it doesn't bode well for the site recommendation."
The Energy Department has remained tight-lipped on its input to the Bush administration. The DOE refused a National Resources Defense Council request to reveal interest groups shaping energy policy for Cheney's task force. The council filed an appeal to the DOE's decision on Wednesday.
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