Thursday, Jan. 10, 2002 | 11 a.m.
Nevada officials are bracing for Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham to tell them that he will recommend to President Bush that Yucca Mountain is a suitable place to bury nuclear waste.
But Energy Department officials would not confirm whether Abraham's announcement, widely expected for months, would be today.
Gov. Kenny Guinn said today, however, that he received a call from Karl Rove, a top Bush adviser, saying that a decision on Yucca Mountain would be made today or Friday.
The governor said he has a "gut feeling" after talking to Abraham on Monday that he will recommend Yucca as the site of the high level nuclear dump. Abraham was in town to tour the site.
Congress has asked for Abraham's decision by Feb. 28 on whether Yucca Mountain is a suitable place to bury the nation's high-level nuclear waste.
By law, if Abraham decides that Yucca is suitable, he must first inform Guinn. It is this decision that Nevada officials are expecting either today or Friday. Then Abraham must wait 30 days before forwarding his decision to Bush.
The president has no time limit on deciding whether to place the dump at Yucca Mountain. If Bush goes forward with Yucca, Guinn then has 60 days to veto the decision -- a power granted by the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act.
"I don't feel there is enough scientific evidence," Guinn said today regarding his view that a Yucca repository poses a health threat to Nevadans. "There are too many questions. There were 293 unanswered questions raised by the General Accounting Office," which is Congress' investigative arm.
The issue goes to Congress if Nevada uses its veto power. Congress would have 90 days to override the Nevada veto. Guinn said both chambers, by a simple majority, must approve the Yucca site.
Guinn said Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., has said the issue is dead. He said Daschle could hold up a vote for longer than 90 legislative days, thereby killing the plan.
There's a parliamentary question about whether Daschle has that authority. The governor said the attorneys in Washington that were hired by the state are researching whether the Senate majority leader can pigeonhole the issue. And that could end up in court, Guinn said.
In addition, the Energy Department would still have to get approval to build from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. And that could take years.
Reacting to Rove's phone call to Guinn, Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said this morning, "This was inevitable, but at the same time it's outrageous. It just indicates the complete bias the Department of Energy has toward building (a Yucca Mountain repository). It doesn't need to happen now. They have time to complete the studies."
Yucca Mountain has been under study as the nation's sole repository for nuclear waste since 1987.
Fully expecting Abraham to recommend the Yucca site to Bush, Ensign and Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., may send Bush a letter suggesting he tell Abraham to delay the site recommendation, Reid spokesman Nathan Naylor said. The senators intend to hold Bush to a campaign promise to let scientific data, not political pressure, determine whether Yucca is a suitable site, Naylor said.
"If the president is truly committed to letting science decide, then he can't side with his energy secretary," Naylor said. "This is a test of his convictions. We have no reason to believe that President Bush won't stick to his word."
Ensign said he and Reid may lean on Daschle, who has said the Yucca project was dead as long as he and Reid were Senate leaders.
"We're checking into all the parliamentary options," Ensign said.
Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., was traveling outside the country but faxed to the Sun a statement, "It is unfortunate that Secretary Abraham would continue green-lighting a project that has been riddled with corruption and mismanagement since its inception."
Abraham had told Guinn on Monday that a decision on Yucca Mountain was imminent.
After his tour, the secretary told reporters, "I would say this completes the process of the course of study I have set out for myself." He was referring to thousands of documents and at least 14,800 public comments made about the proposed repository.
Abraham appeared briefly in Nevada one other time in preparation for his decision. He flew with little advance notice on Dec. 12 to Las Vegas to attend the 66th Energy Department hearing on Yucca . He said little at the meeting.
Congress in 1982 directed the department to study three sites as possible burial grounds: Yucca, and sites in Washington state and Texas. Congress in 1987 directed the department to study only Yucca.
The proposal involves shipping waste now stored at the nation's 103 active nuclear power plants, as well as waste from various Defense Department sites, to Nevada for permanent storage. Waste would be encased in high-tech metal casks placed in tunnels 1,000 feet below the surface at Yucca.
The project would need the final approval of the president, Congress, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission before it could proceed.
Nevada officials have long opposed the proposal. They say the underground tunnels cannot contain radiation over thousands of years.
The Energy Department has spent roughly $8 billion to study Yucca Mountain over 20 years, making it one of the most scrutinized spots on Earth, and studies are ongoing.
The department was required by law to open a repository in 1998, but does not expect nuclear waste shipments until 2010 at the earliest, based on the complex studies. Nuclear power plant operators, who are eager to ship their waste to Yucca, have sued the Energy Departmnet for missing the 1998 deadline.
Sun reporters Cy Ryan and Jeff German contributed to this report.
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