Editorial: Hope, peril await foes of Yucca

Monday, Feb. 7, 2005 | 8:56 a.m.

The Nevada Commission on Nuclear Projects believes that our state is in its best position ever to defeat the Energy Department's plan to bury 77,000 tons of nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, just 90 miles away from Las Vegas. The annual report by the commission, which advises the governor and the Legislature on nuclear waste issues, cites last year's important legal victory by the state over the federal government as reason for optimism. In that case, a federal appeals court ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency's current radiation standard for a dump at Yucca Mountain -- that radiation from the dump would have to be contained at low levels for 10,000 years -- wasn't stringent enough to meet the standards set by the National Academy of Sciences. President Bush, at the time, said he would respect the court's ruling.

"The commission believes it is only a matter of time before Congress and even the nuclear industry recognize the futility of continuing to invest money and resources in a project that has no chance of succeeding and that has become a financial, technical, legal and environmental black hole instead of a viable solution to the nuclear waste problem," wrote Commission Chairman Brian McKay, a former Nevada attorney general. In light of this finding, it was interesting to read last week's New York Times story that reported nuclear energy advocates are backing away from their previous position that a nuclear waste dump at Nevada's Yucca Mountain needs to be opened before new nuclear reactors can be built. Some of the industry's supporters, the Times noted, believe that it was a mistake to tie its future to that of the dump. So the nuclear power industry is looki ng at near-term alternatives to Yucca Mountain, such as sending some of the nuclear waste to an Indian reservation in Utah,! where it would be kept in above-ground storage facilities.

James Muckerheide, an official who monitors federal safety regulation of reactors in Massachusetts, wrote a recent e-mail to his colleagues acknowledging that the problem facing the states with nuclear power is one mostly of the industry's own doing. "If the industry simply shut up about Yucca Mountain, instead of dishonestly claiming that on-site spent fuel storage is an unacceptable hazard, the issue could have been largely diffused," Muckerheide wrote. In a nutshell, Muckerheide has reminded the nation of one of the more salient points too frequently lost in the debate over Yucca Mountain: Nuclear waste can be safely stored where nuclear power is generated. There is, quite simply, no need to rush a decision on Yucca Mountain.

Nevertheless, the reality is that the nuclear power industry isn't backing off its push to get Yucca Mountain approved. And the industry's government mouthpiece, the Energy Department, isn't showing signs that it is giving up on Yucca Mountain. It is significant that Spencer Abraham, just one day after he left office as secretary of the Energy Department last week, said that Congress, not the EPA (relying on the recommendation of the National Academy of Sciences), should set Yucca Mountain's radiation standard.

We're concerned that this could be part of some wink-and-nod game that goes like this: President Bush, during the 2004 campaign, publicly declares that he will abide by the federal court ruling on Yucca Mountain's radiation standard and not ask the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn it. The Republican-controlled Congress, however, interprets Abraham's remarks last week as a signal that the president, in actuality, is willing to go along with legislation that would overrule the appeals court decision and weaken the existing radiation standard. Congress passes the legislation and Bush signs it into law, paving the way for work at Yucca Mountain to continue.

The fact that Yucca Mountain has become increasingly partisan -- with nearly all Republicans in Congress supporting it and most Democrats opposing it -- also is troubling as the year unfolds. Although Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has considerable clout to potentially block pro-Yucca Mountain legislation, if the Republican majorities in both houses of Congress make undoing the appeals court's decision a priority -- and remember that Republicans made significant gains in Congress last year -- this could spell real trouble for Nevada.