Nuke firms seek support for Utah site

Benjamin Grove

Sunday, March 19, 2006 | 7:23 a.m.

WASHINGTON - The nuclear industry consortium that is trying to establish a private temporary radioactive waste dump on Goshute Indian land in Utah quietly appealed to Congress for support after its top investors pulled out of the project.

The group of nuclear utilities known as Private Fuel Storage LLC, sent a letter to lawmakers in December, suggesting that the site would be a great temporary dump site for waste ultimately bound for the long-delayed permanent repository planned for Yucca Mountain, the Deseret News reported last week.

The letter was sent about a week after Private Fuel Storage's top two private nuclear utility investors withdrew their support for the interim dump project. The utilities backed out, saying they were encouraged by the government's apparent commitment to constructing Yucca.

The withdrawals left the corporation scrambling for business, so it sought out Congress, hoping that lawmakers might consider the Utah site as a temporary government waste dump.

The department is liable for the highly radioactive material that comes out of the nation's 103 operating nuclear power plants, where the waste has been piling up for decades. The Energy Department - which means, taxpayers - faces hundreds of millions of dollars in rising liability penalties because it did not begin hauling the industry's waste away by 1998.

The government wasn't biting at the Private Fuel's offer. Last week Energy Department Deputy Secretary Clay Sell told a House panel that the department was committed to developing Yucca, not shipping the waste off to a temporary site in Utah.

The Energy Department is considering its option to establish a temporary government waste site, but the department has never really considered the Goshute Indian site a good option, Sell said.

Utah lawmakers have long opposed that site and vowed to fight any new attempt to lobby Congress for support. "They're grasping for options, but this one won't work either," Sen. Robert Bennett, R-Utah, told the Deseret News.

Congress is out this week for a St. Patrick's Day break, so lawmakers are back in their districts ...

Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., will kick off his re-election campaign at an 8:30 a.m. public event Wednesday at the Leatherneck Club of Las Vegas, 4630 W. Spring Mountain Road.

The first-term senator is considered a favorite in a race against former President Jimmy Carter's son, Jack Carter.

Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman also has been contemplating a run against Ensign.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Sheriff Bill Young are planning a trip to San Diego on Wednesday to examine Mexican border security issues as immigration reform legislation heats up in Congress.

Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., on Tuesday is scheduled to tour Las Vegas Recovery Center, a private drug treatment facility with a focus on treating methamphetamine addicts.

Lawmakers are debating controversial funding cuts for drug enforcement and cleanup programs in President Bush's budget proposal for next year.

Rep. Jon Porter, R-Nev., plans to offer new information about Yucca Mountain investigations this week. Porter will offer an update Thursday on his own congressional probe of Yucca quality assurance failures. Porter will do so at 10:30 a.m. at the Energy Department office, 4101-B Meadows Lane in Las Vegas.

Porter also will discuss the new findings of a General Accountability Office investigation of Yucca issues, which are expected Thursday.

Staff members for Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., will be feasting on chocolate this week courtesy of Reid's staff.

Aides in the Reid and Baucus offices made a wager on the basketball game between the No. 12 seeded University of Montana and No. 5 UNR, played on the first day of the NCAA basketball tournament. Montana won in an 87-79 upset.

At stake was a delivery of Montana beef versus gourmet chocolates from the Ethel M factory in Henderson.

"We thought it would be an easy way to get some good steak," Reid spokeswoman Sharyn Stein said.

She stressed that the bet was between staffers of the two offices, not between Baucus and Reid, the Mormon Democratic leader who does not gamble (but does steadfastly defend the state's gaming industry). Stein said Reid's office would be sending Baucus' Montana office a big box of chocolate in the next few days.