Goodman calls for Yucca cuts

Suzanne Struglinski

Monday, Oct. 13, 2003 | 9:34 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman wants to make sure Congress does not fully fund the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage site and other nuclear projects in the pending energy spending bill.

Goodman and Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson sent a letter to Nevada and Utah congressional delegations late last month asking them to "do whatever you can to resist provisions that would speed up development of the Yucca Mountain Project and initiatives that could lead to the resumption of nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site."

Based on the strong support of House Appropriations Energy subcommittee Chairman David Hobson, R-Ohio, for the project, the House approved $765 million for Yucca Mountain earlier this summer, but the Senate approved only $425 million for the project. The department had requested $591 million.

Hobson said fully funding the project was his top priority while Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., uses his position on the Senate Appropriation Committee to continually cut the program.

Select members of the House and Senate will meet to iron out differences between the bills, including the Yucca funding discrepancy, before sending it to the president.

"Rewarding the DOE with unbudgeted funds despite its atrocious track record in this project and at virtually all of its facilities is tantamount to an abrogation of congressional oversight and budget obligations," Goodman and Anderson's letter said.

The mayors also objected to $15 million earmarked for the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, nickname the "bunker buster" and other nuclear weapons funds.

"It is clear to us, as it should be to all careful observers, that this administration is set upon a course that will inexorably lead to a new round of what term residents here remember as 'the bombing.'

Meanwhile, Yucca supporters in the House are trying to drum up support for the $765 million allocation.

Rep. John Spratt, D-S.C., and Fred Upton R-Mich., circulated a letter Friday asking members to support the higher budget figure for the project by signing a letter to Hobson and the leading Democrat on the House subcommittee, Peter Visclosky of Indiana.

"Three-hundred and six House members voted last year to support the site suitability resolution for Yucca Mountain, and in light of this overwhelming approval, we believe that the time has come to move forward on this program," Spratt and Upton wrote.

Upton's district has two nuclear power plants whose waste would be shipped to the mountain, an aide said. South Carolina has nuclear power plants as well as waste as the Savannah River Site that would end up at Yucca, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The letter to Hobson and Visclosky emphasizes that the department estimates each year of delay on the Yucca project will result in direct federal costs of $500 million and maybe more since it would continue to violate commitments to nuclear utilities.

"The added investment included in the House bill will significantly reduce ultimate program costs and federal liabilities," the letter said.