Sandoval asks NRC to ensure fairness of any Yucca hearings

Friday, April 4, 2003 | 10:03 a.m.

Nevada's attorney general asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Thursday to impose special procedures to ensure a fair and credible hearing on a construction license for a Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.

Margaret Chu, head of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, said in Las Vegas earlier this week the department plans to apply for a license for the first-of-a-kind project by December 2004.

"With several potent lawsuits pending, we don't know if this project will ever actually get to the NRC licensing stage," Attorney General Brian Sandoval said. "But if it does, Nevada wants to ensure that the proceeding is not rigged against the state, and is both fair and credible."

Last year, President Bush approved Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, as the site of a dump for the nation's high-level nuclear waste.

Under federal law the licensing process will last at least three years and is expected to involve extensive testimony at hearings in both Las Vegas and Washington.

Nevada filed the petition because of recent indications that relations between the Energy Department and the NRC had become too familiar, Sandoval said.

"There is supposed to be an arm's-length relationship between applicant and regulator, but lately these two agencies have looked more like joint developers," Sandoval said.

He cited four instances in the past year as the basis for the request, including the NRC leaking its draft Yucca Mountain Licensing Review Plan to the Energy Department.

Last year, Sandoval noted, the Energy Department, the NRC and the federal Office of Government Ethics created new rules that exclude any former Energy Department or NRC employee who was involved in Yucca Mountain at any time from testifying for Nevada.

The Energy Department is not bound by the new rule, Sandoval said. The Energy Department has already hired NRC's former executive director of operations, Joe Callan, to assist in developing the Yucca dump.