Berkley calls for analysis of Yucca safety

Suzanne Struglinski

Friday, Aug. 8, 2003 | 11:19 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., is trying to slow down the Energy Department's plans to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain by requiring security reviews and response plans.

She has sponsored a bill, introduced just as the House adjourned for its August recess, requiring a comphrehensive analysis of the project's safety and vulnerability to terrorist acts and the development of a federal emergency plan, including one specifically for airborne attacks, to defend the site. Reps. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., and Jon Porter, R-Nev., co-sponsored the bill.

"Before we start transportating nuclear waste across this nation and before we spend another dime on Yucca Mountain, we better know what we're going to do and how were going to do it." Berkley said, referring to security plans, during a call from Israel this morning.

Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is slated to be the country's federal repository for spent nuclear fuel. By law it would hold 77,000 tons of the waste shipped from the 103 nuclear power plants across the country, along with Energy Department and Defense Department wastes. The department has spent about $8 billion on the project so far, with most coming from an account earmarked for the site from nuclear power ratepayer money, but some cost estimates put the project at $60 billion.

The analysis and defense plan called for in the bill would cover the site, transportation routes and shipping casks, waste storage containers and personnel working for the project, among other items, according to the bill language.

"Instead of making the United States safer, the proposed Yucaa Mountain project, as currently designed, would give terrorists an obvious, huge, easy-to-attack target that, at any point, could cause massive economic and civilian casualties within the United States," according to the bill.

Nevada's state officials and federal lawmakers vehemently oppose the site, although President Bush and Congress approved it last year. The Energy Department expects to submit a license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for the site in December 2004. If all goes according to department's plan, the site could open in 2010.

But should the bill be approved, the department could not submit a license application nor could the commission issue a license until "the secretary has certified all facets of the Yucca Mountain project are not vulnerable" to terrorist acts. The Homeland Security Department would also need to complete a report to Congress on the potential liability costs and damages resulting from a terrorism act against the site before the application could be submitted.

Mitch Singer, spokesman for the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry group, said the bill seems to be more like another roadblock for the project, rather than a serious concern about security. He noted that the site is right next to Nellis Air Force Base and the entrance is beyond the secured gates of the Nevada Test Site.

"It's not exactly the kind of target that offers any type of success," Singer said.

Berkley said "Every delay helps our cause to keep waste out of Yucca Mountain, but this is not a frivolous piece of legislation."

She said the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, the federal law that guides the project, does not include a security study or plan of any kind if something as "hideous" as the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were to take place at the mountain or during the waste's transportation to the site.

"The circumstances have changed dramatically," she said. "We're living in a much more dangerous world than we did in 1982."

Berkley introduced similar legislation in 2001, but it did not move through appropriate committees. The previous bill would not have allowed the department's site recommendation until the security reviews were done. The bill had seven co-sponsors, all Democrats except for Gibbons. Porter had not yet been elected to Congress.

Berkley said today that with Homeland Security Department now in place, which was not the case last time, it may give the bill a better chance. She said having Porter and Gibbons now to work with the Republicans will also help.

The current bill still needs consideration by at least three subcommittees, including the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, to which Berkley and Porter belong.

Tessa Hafen, spokeswoman for Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said a similar bill does not exist in the Senate, but that Reid supports the idea and may incorporate it in a larger waste transportation bill he may introduce later this fall.