Berkley bill calls for threat study of Yucca

Benjamin Grove

Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2001 | 10:38 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., today introduced legislation designed to slow the plan to bury the nation's high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain.

Berkley in early October said she was drafting a bill directing the nation's new Office of Homeland Security to analyze the risk of attacks by terrorists on the proposed nuclear waste site, as well as risks along cross-country waste transportation routes. She planned to formally introduce the bill today.

Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is the proposed site of the world's first high-level nuclear waste burial ground. Nevada lawmakers oppose the plan, which has not received final approvals from Congress, the president or the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Berkley's bill requires an analysis of the threat risk and a study of the consequences of an attack to Yucca or along transportation routes. It also requires a plan for defense.

The bill's most important provision prevents the Secretary of Energy from making a recommendation about the site's suitability as a safe waste repository until the terrorist threat analysis is complete, Berkley said.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham is planning to make a recommendation about the site in the next few months, so there is an urgency to passing the bill, Berkley said.

"We think it would be a monumental mistake for the secretary of Energy to recommend this site to the president without seriously looking into an assessment of the vulnerabilities," Berkley said.