DOE’s schedule change could benefit Nevada

Suzanne Struglinski

Tuesday, Nov. 23, 2004 | 11:11 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Nevada feels a little less pressure now that it is clear the Yucca Mountain project's license application is still a few months off.

There is still a lot of work ahead in the fight against storing 77,000 tons of highly radioactive waste in the state, but based on the Energy Department's announcements Monday, the state's attorneys have more time to work.

"Our scope of work has gone down dramatically," said Joe Egan, an attorney hired by the state to handle Yucca issues. "It's no longer an emergency in terms of timing."

The department said Monday it would not submit its license application for the proposed nuclear repository at Yucca, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, next month as planned. The department also will not finish loading documents into the project's database until sometime next year.

The nuclear industry is "disappointed" said Steve Kraft, director of waste management at the Nuclear Energy Institute, but agrees that the department should not submit an incomplete application.

"If it is going to take them some extra time, then by all means let them take it," Kraft said. "We understand why and certainly would want them to get it right."

Margaret Chu, the director of the civilian radioactive waste program, told the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that the department would let it know about a new schedule for the license application sometime in February or early 2005.

She said she did not want to arbitrarily name a new date and run the risk of missing it too because that would undermine the department's credibility.

Chu said the delay was caused by a combination of an internal review of the draft application, the federal court decision throwing out the radiation protection standard and questions surrounding the project's documents.

Nevada has been waiting for the department to recertify its documents ever since a commission panel said the initial certification did not satisfy commission rules earlier this year. Once the department gets all it documents onto the network, Nevada has 90 days to go through it and get its own documents online.

The network is supposed to contain all documents related to work on the application, from lengthy technical documents to e-mails between department employees. Nevada can add any documents it feels the department did not include or that might help the state's challenges.

Egan and the state's other attorney can also fine tune those challenges and finish more technical work between now and whenever the department files the application.

Congress approved $2 million for the state's work on the project and $8 million for local governments, an increase from the state's $1 million and local government's $4 million received for fiscal year 2004.

Meanwhile observers on Monday were mulling how two new members of the five-member Nuclear Regulatory Commission might affect the Yucca project.

A deal that grew out of negotiations involving Reid, White House officials and Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., would allow a top Reid aide, Greg Jaczko, to take one of the open seats on the commission as early as January. But Jaczko likely would be limited to a two-year stint unless Reid could somehow convince Bush to renominate him. And Jaczko would recuse himself from Yucca matters during his first year, under the agreement.

That means Jaczko also likely would be limited on Yucca topics in his official interactions with Nuclear Regulator Commission staffers, commission spokesman Scott Burnell said. Still, it likely would not necessarily bar him from having a private conversation with another commissioner, Burnell said.

Reid's compromise on Jaczko may be an early indication of how he plans to make good on a pledge to work toward compromises with the Bush administration, one observer said.

"It's consistent with what I understand to be Harry Reid's style," UNLV political science professor Ted Jelen said. "And that is that he is not one to provoke confrontation for its own sake."

Reid had been holding up 172 other nominations to federal posts, irking Republicans but ultimately earning Jaczko a seat, albeit with limits.

"I don't think he sold out," Jelen said. "It was probably the best he could do."

Reid believes the deal was a good one because the commission won't take much action on Yucca anyway in the next year, and because in two years Reid can fight to keep him on the commission, spokeswoman Tessa Hafen said.

Two anti-Yucca activists were reluctant to criticize the deal struck regarding Jaczko's nomination. But two others said they were disappointed.

The public suffers under the compromise, said Navin Nayak, environmental advocate at U.S. Public Interest Research Group, who tracks Yucca issues. The nuclear industry traditionally has had no trouble winning Senate approval for commissioners who likely support Yucca, but someone seen as possibly critical of the project now has to recuse himself from Yucca matters for a year, Nayak said.

"It's a pretty bad deal," Nayak said.

Pro-Yucca lawmakers have notably lessened the impact Jaczko could have on the commission, especially if he only serves two years, said Kevin Kamps, nuclear waste specialist with Nuclear Information and Resource Service. Pro-Yucca nuclear power industry leaders saw Jaczko as a real threat, he said.