Yucca rail line raises legal question

Suzanne Struglinski

Friday, April 23, 2004 | 8:48 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Nevada officials say the Energy Department has violated federal law by not including the Surface Transportation Board in its plans to build a new rail line in the state.

Attorney General Brian Sandoval sent a letter to Council on Environmental Quality Chairman James Connaughton Thursday asking for an investigation in the department's plans to build a rail line to the Yucca Mountain project, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

"DOE appears to have blatantly pre-empted the exercise of exclusive regulatory authority by the Surface Transportation Board over this new rail line," Sandoval wrote.

The department announced on April 8 that it would build a 319-mile rail line from Caliente as well as a transfer facility and rail connections in other states.

Sandoval said what the department wants to do "is nothing less than the largest new rail project in North American in many decades" but that the Surface Transportation Board, the federal agency that oversees railroad construction, appears to have been left out of the process.

The Surface Transportation Board had no comment on the letter, a spokesman said.

Yucca Mountain project spokesman Allen Benson said the department has been talking with the board, but the extent of its involvement will depend on whether other trains beyond those carrying waste to the repository can use the tracks.