Friday, Oct. 3, 2003 | 11:03 a.m.
WASHINGTON -- Legislators do not plan to give the Energy Department authority to classify radioactive waste as high-level or low-level material without consulting the affected states.
The Energy Department has been trying to get language into the final energy bill that would allow it to deem some high-level nuclear waste in storage tanks at three former nuclear weapons sites as low level and leave it on site instead of moving it to Yucca Mountain, the potential federal nuclear waste storage site about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
A July court ruling said the Energy Department could not leave certain waste at the sites under the federal nuclear waste law, so the department asked Congress to "clarify" the law rather than challenge the ruling, department spokesman Joe Davis said.
The House accepted a motion offered by Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash., telling energy bill negotiators to not accept the department's request for the authority, based on the impact it could have on Idaho, Washington, South Carolina, where those plants are located, and possibly other states.
Gov. Kenny Guinn said Thursday he was concerned that Nevada could end up getting more waste newly classified as low level at the Nevada Test Site, which stores some low-level waste from nuclear weapons plants.
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham sent a letter Thursday to House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Billy Tauzin, R-La., a member of the energy conference committee, saying the department is not trying to reclassify high level waste in order to move it somewhere other than Yucca Mountain. He also wrote than anything deemed low-level would have to meet certain standards.
The Energy Department has argued that without the change in the law, it could not proceed with its accelerated cleanup plans at the former nuclear weapons plants and could actually put more waste into Yucca Mountain than intended.
The site can legally hold 77,000 tons of nuclear waste, which is estimated to exist by the scheduled opening in 2010, so even if the Energy Department could reclassify waste it would not stop other spent fuel from coming to the state.
Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, chairman of the House air quality subcommittee, said the energy bill conferees "had no intention" of putting the department's language into the final bill and it was "unlikely" to be included, unless there was discussion with the affected states.
However, the approved motion does not legally prohibit the conferees from including the change.
The Energy Department also had asked for the authority from the Senate, but Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee spokeswoman Marnie Funk said the committee refused to add the language added to the conference report as well.
But Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., spoke in favor of Islee's motion to block the Energy Department's request, stopping the Yucca argument.
"Some might claim DOE's plan would stop more waste from going to Nevada," Berkley said. "The truth is Yucca Mountain is already full."
Rep. Jim Gibbons's, R-Nev, chief concern was the department opting to change its own rules again.
"Its set a very bad precedent to allow the Department of Energy to come in and change the standard," Gibbons spokeswoman Amy Spanbauer said. "The department-- continually tries to move the goal post in the middle of the game."
Spanbauer said if DOE gets this change, who was to say it could not come in a month or a year from now and say the legal 77,000-ton limit for Yucca Mountain needs to be increased or try alter other rules in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.
"It's a slippery slope," she said.
An aide to Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said the senator was likely not to support DOE's proposed change, also because it was another example of the department not living up to its commitments.
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