Thursday, March 2, 2006 | 7:17 a.m.
WASHINGTON - Every so often all of the major players in the long-running saga of Yucca Mountain gather in one spot in the nation's capital, and the result is Washington theater: nuclear waste policy as a two-hour stage production.
Broadway this ain't, although the shows typically offer a few chuckles and a moment or two of drama. The hearings also offer a glimpse at the complex issues and perspectives that have shaped the Yucca story.
The actors assembled in a wood-paneled Senate hearing room Wednesday for a "status" hearing on the proposed nuclear waste repository program.
Among the players:
Golan has been acting Yucca chief since May. At the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing Wednesday, Golan briefly described the marching orders he got in mid-September from Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman: " 'Make it simpler and safer.' "
Critics have ripped the Energy Department for essentially giving up on setting a timeline and budget estimate for the project, which is more than two decades old. Golan said he planned to unveil a project schedule sometime this summer.
Speculation continued to swirl in the room among Yucca observers about the legislation being dubbed the "Fix Yucca" bill, which Golan's department plans to send to Congress, probably within days. That bill is expected to include a number of provisions, some likely to be highly controversial, designed to speed completion of the repository. But Golan wouldn't say much about the bill.
At one point, under questioning about faulty quality-assurance procedures at Yucca, Golan played the role of tough-talking reformer, vowing to make changes.
"I have a stack of reports from the GAO (General Accountability Office), the IG (inspector general) and various other people inside and outside the department that looked at the quality of Yucca Mountain," Golan said. "I've read all those reports, and they're missing one thing: They're missing accountability. So I'm going to hold folks accountable."
They don't have many new lines.
But as a courtesy, the committee allowed Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., to put their gripes on the record again.
"It should be clear to everyone that the proposed Yucca Mountain project is not going anywhere," Reid said. "It will never open."
Ensign hit his mark despite being winded from hustling to the meeting a few minutes late. He had enough breath left to call Yucca "junk science" and to suggest that the Bush administration's recent proposal to develop a controversial waste-recycling technology was "quickly emerging as a viable alternative" to Yucca.
Toward the end of the hearing, the panel's chairman - Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., a vocal Yucca advocate - introduced Nevada's top Yucca watchdog, Bob Loux, mispronouncing his name.
Loux corrected him. He later told Inhofe the two men agreed on one thing - that scientific study at Yucca should finally come to an end. Loux thinks the research proves the site unsuitable - Inhofe believes it proves Yucca safe.
Inhofe released a 25-page report concluding that it was time to stop researching and start developing Yucca.
Its title reflected the long-simmering frustration among many Yucca advocates in Congress: "Yucca Mountain: The Most Studied Real Estate on the Planet."
Inhofe then stole Reid's line - a version of the Democratic Party's new slogan - when he said, "We owe it to the American people to do better."
Inhofe also asserted that nuclear power is the nation's "cleanest and safest" source of electricity, despite the subject of his hearing - nuclear's dirty and dangerous waste. Inhofe is one of the committee's 10 Republican members - nine of whom took campaign money in the past two years from the Nuclear Energy Institute, a leading pro-Yucca lobbying group.
Reid has not always been able to corral Democrats in opposition to Yucca, but he has a vocal ally in Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who on Wednesday chewed up witness William Wehrum of the Environmental Protection Agency. Wehrum was there to explain how the EPA's controversial new radiation-release standard for Yucca will protect future generations.
He began his testimony by mispronouncing Nevada.
Boxer and other critics say the standard is too lax. She quoted a nuclear physicist who suggested the EPA standard could increase cancer rates among people living near Yucca to 1 in 5 - or even 1 in 4 for women. She repeatedly demanded a yes or no response from Wehrum on whether that was acceptable.
Wehrum would say only that he was confident the new standard would protect human health and safety.
"I'm asking you if you think that is unacceptable, and you won't answer it," Boxer said. "You won't answer it - and I think that speaks volumes to the people of Nevada."
"No other rules in the U.S. for any risks have ever attempted to regulate for such a long period of time," Wehrum said.
Wehrum seemed to wither several moments under Boxer's questioning, but he asserted that the standard was strict enough.
"Our proposal requires the Department of Energy to show that Yucca Mountain can safely contain wastes, even considering the effects of earthquakes, volcanic activity, climate change, and container corrosion over 1 million years," he said.
A Massachusetts Institute of Technology researcher, Allison MacFarlane, testified that geologic storage is the best solution for the nation's waste. But MacFarlane has long asserted that Yucca is a bad site.
She drew chuckles when she quoted Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who famously outlined his fear that there are unknown unknowns - "the ones we don't know we don't know."
At Yucca, MacFarlane said, "Those are the things I'm worried about."
Benjamin Grove can be reached at (202) 662-7436 or at [email protected].
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