Reid’s rise to power may be bad news for Yucca backers

Sunday, Dec. 3, 2006 | 7:41 a.m.

WASHINGTON - When pro-Yucca Mountain advocates called on Senate Majority Leader-elect Harry Reid to step aside from the nuclear waste debate, some saw it as an act of desperation over the stalled project.

After the Democrats' victory in last month's elections, efforts to build the nation's first nuclear waste repository seem to be at a crossroads.

Reid's new position all but halts legislative efforts to "fix Yucca" and seriously jeopardizes its continued funding. The looming presidential race, with its early Democratic caucus in Nevada, means contenders likely will have little appetite to support a project unpopular with Silver State voters. Plans for establishing interim waste storage elsewhere continue to be floated as options.

And the Department of Energy faces a 2008 deadline to present the project for approval - a milestone that has been blown twice before.

Michele Boyd, legislative director for energy policy at Public Citizen, a Washington, D.C.-based watchdog group that opposes Yucca Mountain, said all bets are riding on that deadline.

"It really is at the make-or-break point right now," she said.

The day after Democrats took control of Congress in last month's midterm elections, Reid told Nevada reporters that his new position did not mean he could single-handedly kill Yucca Mountain.

Plenty of Reid's fellow Democrats backed the original plan to send waste to Nevada and continue to support it. But as leader, Reid can decide what bills come to the Senate floor, and he could have a heavy hand in slashing Yucca Mountain's annual $450 million budget, essentially starving the project of the money it needs to progress.

Reid has long called for storing the waste where it is now, at dozens of nuclear power sites around the nation.

His impending power as Senate majority leader prompted leaders of a pro-Yucca Mountain coalition last week to call on Reid to step aside, arguing that he should not abuse his leadership position for parochial interests.

"Sen. Reid is now the majority leader, and he has to lead for the country," said LeRoy Koppendrayer, chairman of the Nuclear Waste Strategy Council, which represents states now holding waste at local nuclear power plants. "The majority of this country is in favor of nuclear energy."

While the pro-Yucca coalition doubts Reid will try to eliminate funding for Yucca - the government sends $300 million to Nevada each year for the project, funding 1,400 jobs - it expects that he will simply try to starve it to dissolution.

"He should remove himself from this debate because I do believe he is in a conflicted situation," said Jack Edlow, a founding member of the U.S. Transport Council, a waste-hauling advocacy group.

Some saw those comments as a naive understanding of the way Washington works. Others viewed it as a provocative attention-grabber, one from which some in the industry distanced themselves.

Because of Reid's ascension and other factors, Nevada's clout is much enhanced from what it was in 1987, when Congress chose Yucca Mountain over other potential sites for the waste repository.

The government has spent $9 billion on Yucca Mountain, and costs could rise well above the projected $58 billion price tag.

The incoming chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., has said he would like to hold oversight hearings on the costs.

Last week, the Energy Department's project director, Edward "Ward" Sproat, said the recently announced 2017 opening date - already nearly 20 years behind schedule - was probably ambitious by about three years, due to expected lawsuits.

Still, the nuclear industry remains confident that as the new Democratic Congress tackles the global warming issue, Yucca Mountain will remain on track.

Some environmentalists believe nuclear power is a key component of the climate change debate because it is a cleaner energy source. And if you go nuclear, you need a place to store the waste.

"The timely death of Yucca Mountain has been predicted many times - and it's not dead yet," said Craig Nesbit, spokesman for Exelon, which operates the nation's largest nuclear fleet and represents 20 percent of the country's nuclear industry capacity.

With as many as 30 new applications expected to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission next year, some believe nuclear energy is poised for a renaissance.

But after President Bush leaves office at the end of 2008, it is unclear whether a new administration would continue the push for a new nuclear era.

The Nuclear Energy Institute has turned its sights to storing waste at some of the dozen sites nationwide that the Energy Department announced last week had received seed money to develop proposals for nuclear recycling facilities - a controversial, long-term plan to one day recycle spent nuclear fuel.

"Maybe the best place to do it may be sites where you develop those," said the institute's Steven Kraft. "We've said that makes a lot of sense."

Boyd, from the watchdog group, has been shopping a proposal to beef up security for the waste now stored at existing nuclear power plants.

She said sooner or later, something's got to give.

"I promise we will be here for another 20 years if we stay on this hamster circle unless somebody stands up and says this is not working," she said. "One can only hope there's only so much patience Congress has."