Transportation, Yucca hearings will coincide

Benjamin Grove

Wednesday, April 24, 2002 | 11:10 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The House Transportation Committee has scheduled a Thursday hearing on transporting nuclear waste that gives Nevada leaders a chance to press their arguments against a Yucca Mountain repository. But the testimony will most likely fall on deaf ears.

At the same time in another room, the House Energy and Commerce Committee is scheduled to vote on -- and likely approve -- the plan to ship the nation's nuclear waste to Nevada. That will set up a vote in the full House, which is expected to overwhelmingly approve a Yucca dump as early as next week.

The hearing and vote underscore the House's sense of urgency to approve Yucca while Nevada lawmakers scramble to convince colleagues that shipping waste across their states would be dangerous.

Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, a key Yucca advocate and driving force on the repository in the House Energy Committee, said there were no transportation issues that need to be worked out in Congress before lawmakers vote.

Barton, energy and air quality subcommittee chairman, said his panel would hold hearings on waste transportation issues in the coming years, well before waste is actually shipped to the site.

"You'll see pretty heavy discussion on the transportation issue," Barton said. "We're certainly going to have (congressional) oversight."

Still, Nevada officials requested the transportation hearing to air concerns before the House votes.

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said it was important to put concerns on the risks on the record now. But she said she had no illusions that the hearing would prompt more House members to oppose the controversial dump.

"I have no high hopes, but I have an expectation that our point of view will be fully explained and that those members who may be on the fence will get a different perspective by the end of the hearing," Berkley said.

Transportation Committee Chairman Don Young, R-Alaska, agreed to hold the hearing as a courtesy to Berkley, a committee member, and Republican ally Rep. Jim Gibbons of Nevada and as a favor to GOP congressional candidate Jon Porter, who was invited to testify.

Gov. Kenny Guinn, who flew to Washington April 8 to veto President Bush's approval of Yucca Mountain, is also scheduled to testify.

"The modes and methodologies for shipment have not been determined, much less analyzed," Guinn said in written testimony ubmitted last week to Barton's panel. "According to (the Energy Department's) own analyses, a single accident scenario could produce thousands of latent cancer fatalities and lead to many billions of dollars in cleanup costs."

An override of Guinn's veto must be approved by both the House and Senate.

The ball began rolling Tuesday when Barton's subcommittee approved Yucca by a 24-2 vote. Reps. Edward Markey, D-Mass., and Bill Luther, D-Minn., opposed Yucca.

Berkley said she was angered by the vote margin, although she expected it. She sat in the audience's front row so that the panel members could look her in the eye, she said.

"This process has been an embarrassment to this country," she said later. "We knew this was going to be a railroad job from the beginning."

She predicted the full House will also vote overwhelmingly for Yucca. "Anything over 100 votes is a great victory for us."

Before the vote, a number of lawmakers made pro-Yucca statements, including all but two Democrats who spoke.

Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., said the repository was in the best interest of all Americans.

"I would note that the recommendation of the secretary of energy that Yucca Mountain be chosen for nuclear waste disposal is based on 20 years of scientific characterization," Boucher said.

Rep. Mike Doyle, D-Pa., said his state has 3,000 metric tons of nuclear waste, generated by nine reactors at five power plant sites, that should be shipped to Nevada. He said electricity ratepayers from his state contributed $1.4 billion for Yucca's construction since 1983.

Rep. Ralph Hall, D-Texas, said the subcommittee in 1987 had taken no pleasure in selecting Yucca as the only site for study. He said Tuesday's vote was just as difficult.

"It's not easy to vote against your friends (from Nevada). It's not an easy thing to roll over them in this legislation. It just seems to me that there is a time we have to vote. And that vote seems to be near."

Markey pleaded for additional time to speak against Yucca, and Barton gave him about 10 minutes. Markey argued that transporting waste would risk terrorist strikes and accidents.

He argued that the subcommittee picked Yucca in 1987 solely because Nevada was politically weak.

"What we are doing today is an historic mistake," Markey said. "This process is flawed fundamentally, and it has been since 1987, and it will always be."

By contrast, Barton opened the hearing by saying, "This is a historic moment that has been a long time coming."

Barton disputed Markey's arguments, arguing that carefully guarded waste shipped in containers poses a lot of trouble for terrorists when easier targets are available.

"We need to use a little common sense there," Barton said.

"When all is said and done I think it's a mistake for this subcommittee not to act," he said before calling the vote. "We need to let the process go forward."

After the hearing Barton said Nevada lawmakers are jeopardizing the state's ability to negotiate for federal compensation for the dump by adamantly opposing it.

"It's my opinion they are pushing their luck," Barton said. "At some point people accept reality. They are still acting like, 'Oh, put nuclear waste here? We don't like it. No.' "

But Berkley said Nevada officials would not give up and stressed that Nevada would derail the dump in court if need be.

She predicted not one shipment of waste would make its way to Nevada.

"This will not occur," Berkley said flatly.

Barton also told reporters he believed it would be difficult for the Energy Department to meet its goal of shipping waste to Yucca by 2010. Storing waste at the site temporarily was an option if the permanent underground repository is not constructed by then. Congress has rejected temporary storage plans in the past.

"Interim storage is something you look at," Barton said.

The witness list for Thursday's transportation hearing includes Guinn; Gibbons; Porter; Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich, D-Ohio, who opposes waste shipments; Ellen Engleman, administrator for the Research and Special Projects Administration; Allen Rutter, administrator for the Federal Railroad Administration; Lake Barrett, Energy Department deputy director of Yucca; Carl J. Paperiello, deputy executive director for Operations for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which regulates waste shipping containers; Ed Hamberger, president of the Association of American Railroads; Robert Halstead, waste transportation consultant for Nevada; Edward Davis, president and chief executive for waste-container maker NAC International; and James David Ballard, a waste shipping expert from Grand Valley State University in Michigan.

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