Print
E-mail
Share
delicious
digg
Newsvine
Facebook
Stumble
Technorati
reddit
Fark
twitterYucca mountain:
Will Obama starve the beast? Reid thinks so
Tue, Jan 13, 2009 (2 a.m.)
Sun Topics
Sun Archives
- Editorial: Putting science first (12-17-2008)
Washington — Barack Obama pledged during his campaign to oppose the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump. Today, as his nominee for energy secretary, Steven Chu, goes to the Senate for his confirmation hearing, he is expected to begin elaborating on the future of the project.
Opponents of the dump, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, expect this is the beginning of the end for Yucca Mountain.
“Barack Obama will get rid of Yucca Mountain,” Reid said last month in an interview with the Sun.
Obama will “put his fingerprints on it fairly early,” Reid said. “I don’t think there’s too much we need to do legislatively.” Left unsaid by Reid was the reality that he might not have the votes to shut down the project outright if he tried to do so.
Rather, Reid believes the project can be severely crippled through budget cuts he and Obama will make in coming weeks.
Obama’s home state of Illinois is in dire need of a permanent storage site. It has more spent nuclear fuel stored temporarily than any other state. But Obama visited Nevada 20 times on the campaign trail and Nevada helped elect him to the White House.
Reid’s ability to curtail or kill Yucca will surely be a centerpiece of his own reelection campaign in 2010, which already uses the slogan that as majority leader, Reid can deliver for Nevada like no one else can.
As Chu appears for his confirmation hearing, lawmakers are preparing a massive spending plan that will likely contain a sizable cut to the Energy Department’s now $380 million annual budget for Yucca Mountain.
Reid has engineered 20 percent budget cuts over the past two years, and hinted he would do the same this year.
After that, Obama will put his own stamp on the project when he releases the 2010 federal budget in February — with a line item for Yucca Mountain.
Yucca Mountain’s outgoing project director in Washington, Edward Sproat, told the National Academy of Sciences last month that the repository’s projected 2020 opening is an “extreme stretch” given the dicey atmosphere in Washington.
“Politics and money — they’re the only two issues associated with making this happen,” said Sproat, a Bush appointee, who is stepping down at the end of this week.
Obama and his energy secretary-designee arrive in Washington at a time when the political players on the Hill have also changed.
Gone are Yucca Mountain’s longtime supporters — veteran lawmakers including Sen. Pete Domenici, the New Mexico Republican, and Rep. David Hobson, the veteran appropriator from Ohio, who made sure Yucca got its money.
In their place will be other pro-Yucca lawmakers, including Sen. Jim DeMint, the Republican Energy committee member from South Carolina, a state that is home to several nuclear power plants, and Alabama Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions, who is also on the Senate panel.
The nuclear energy industry also just had a change of leadership when retired Navy Admiral Skip Bowman stepped down as head of the Nuclear Energy Institute. But the institute, the industry’s main lobbying arm, is urging the new administration not to change course.
Steven Kraft, the institute’s used-fuel director, suggests that if the government does strangle the project, Washington will face a large and long-running legal battle with utility companies that have contracts with the federal government to have their spent nuclear fuel removed and stored elsewhere.
Already, the government has a liability of more than $7 billion after courts ruled that Washington reneged on its promise to take the waste off the companies’ hands in 1998 — the original opening date for Yucca Mountain.
“We don’t want the legal fights,” Kraft said. The Obama administration should allow the project to continue going through the licensing process at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to determine whether the repository works as government and industry scientists believe it will, he said. The process is expected to take four years.
“We’re on the verge of answering those questions,” he said. “Then you can have all the discussions you want about if we’ll ever use it.”
In Carson City on Monday, Bruce Breslow was settling into his new job at the state Agency for Nuclear Projects. Breslow, the former Sparks mayor, was appointed by the governor to replace Robert Loux, who headed the office fighting Yucca Mountain for 25 years. Loux resigned after improperly giving himself and staff members unapproved pay increases.
The state’s pro-Yucca forces saw Loux’s departure as an opportunity to tilt state policy to a more neutral — or even positive — stance on Yucca. They see the waste dump as a potential economic engine for the state’s poorer rural communities.
But Breslow seems destined to let them down.
“They seem to think there’s a big pot of money at the end of the rainbow, but there isn’t,” Breslow said by phone.
“The state policy for the past 25 years has been to fight (Yucca Mountain) because it’s not safe and it’s a bad plan,” Breslow said. “We may have a new director, but we don’t have a new policy.”
Discussion: 32 comments so far…
Post a comment
Email Edition
- Most Read
- Discussed
- Most E-mailed
- Fourth fireworks light up valley sky
- Ensign’s pal lacked usual qualifications for job as senator’s senior aide
- Jay-Z lights up Las Vegas, lives life to the max
- Cousins attracting attention from college football recruiters
- Strip performer is eBay high bidder for Elvis ring
- Las Vegas to sizzle for the Fourth
- Swarm of crickets descends once again on Northern Nevada
- Local conservative radio talk reflects right’s downcast state
- Henderson house fire displaces family of three
- Day 2 of the World Series of Poker main event
Blogs
Elsewhere
Goalie chooses Mudbugs over Wranglers
The Bull's-Eye
Real drama follows Desert Classic victory by 'The Power' (UPDATED)
Elsewhere
Spike TV's 'UFC's Ultimate 100: Greatest Fights' airs tonight
The Kats Report
LV Phil 'Spectacular' at Springs Preserve was great -- for the music
Punchy Points: UFC 100
No. 6: The Ref: Dean relishes role, making right calls (1 Comment)
The Bull's-Eye
Canadian is first in Desert Classic's final four, Barney joins him (UPDATED) (2 Comments)
Sports: Upon Further Review
July 4 at Wimbledon
Calendar
- Blues Monday at the House of Blues (9 p.m. to 11 p.m.)
- Industry Night at XS (10 p.m. to 11:59 p.m.)
- The Automatic Tour at The Square Apple (5 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.)
The Sun
Locally owned and independent for more than 50 years.
Its time to quit screwing around with Yucca, build it, we need Yucca for our national plans, its time to do what is right. Yucca is safe, and it a good plan, build it, use it. Las Vegas will never know its even there. Its time our politicians quit using the money for Yucca for their needs and do what the country needs. The whiners need to quit whining. Its really funny what people with no clue will say to try and sway the public like Lisa Mascaro, get a clue Lisa before you talk!!
Who is jhv and why should anyone listen to it? What expertise does it have?
Obama visited the Hanford reservation during his campaign and told the workers he really didn't know what they did up there. It is the largest wartime nuclear complex for 50 years and now a $20 billion cleanup project whose waste needs to go to Yucca Mountain. This typifies Obama's lack of knowledge of the country's nuclear weapons and waste remediation complex. Not everything can be recycled. Before killing Yucca Mountain, someone on Obama's staff needs to educate him on the ramifications and dangers to all Americans by stopping the 30 year old project.
"Its really funny what people with no clue will say to try and sway the public..."
JHV, by saying this about Lisa, reveals the motive behind his post.
Yuk Yuk Yucca! :)
Obama promised to "End the notion of Yucca".
We all know Obama would promise to do anything to get Nevada votes. If the reward is big enough, people who want control will trade anything. Now if Obama would of promised to get rid of Reid, even I would have voted for him. Okay, thats stretching it a little. Scientific facts are facts, Yucca Mountain is the safest option. Nuclear waste being stored in industrial parking lots all over the nation is not safe. Can the EPA produce documents of where ALL of this hazardous nuclear waste is currently stored? That is what everyone should be concerned about. It could be blocks from your house.
Let's see if I have this right here....
Obama is going to kill Yucca and Reid is going to take credit for it.
Sounds typical for our "do-nothing" Senator.
People say how dangerous this material is. The waste 'endangers' THEIR community, so their solution is moving it to my community. Where the waste currently sits, are the most secured areas in our country, nuclear reactor sites.
Once the waste is removed, the sites are still just as dangerous because of the reactors. Build bunkers on the already secure reactor sites. Put the waste in the 'ultra safe' transportation casks and put the casks in the bunkers.
Since when did putting all your eggs in one basket become wise.
Gordon may not have read "the law of the land," that applies here. It is called the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. He may be more familiar with the 1987 Amendment, frequently referred to in the State as the Screw Nevada Act. In the NWPA, the policy was decided that the federal government will be responsible for underground disposal of both government and commercial high-level nuclear waste. Leaving the waste at 77 existing sites--never designed to be permanent-- does not meet the requirements of the law. Therefore, to do what Gordon suggests, he will need to convince Congress to change the law. Elsewhere in the comments, the opinion is offered that Harry Reid would not be able to get the votes to do that.
In the meantime, since the government is way behind on the repository, utilities which have paid fees for waste disposal that has not been provided are suing for damages and taxpayers--including Nevadans-- face a growing liability now estimated to be at least $11 billion.
Go ahead Sheeple, believe what the press tells you, you need to read up and see the truth instead of complaining from your arm chair
johnevegas and m shaffer are prime examples of believing what has been put in front of their eyes, it is a shame people do not read facts and comment on them instead of commenting on something they know nothing of or putting down something someone else has..These ypes of people are our countries problem... I have studied the results of the D.O.E.'s impact studies concerning water tables and seismic activites. I also have been a consultant for nuclear energy and cold war nuclear clean up along with a quality assurance consultant to both sectors...How bout you shaffer and vegas?
JHV,
Obviously, both Reid and Obama are going to try reduce funding for Yucca to nil.
They are going to have to fight the Democratic party to accomplish that.
Will it result in lawsuits from states and utility companies? Yes
Will it kill Yucca? No, it will just slow it down. It will be alive 2 and 4 years from now. Reid and Obama (with the Sun giving them cover) will claim that they cut funding enough to make it non-functioning.
But Yucca will still be breathing and ready to come back alive.
Obama and Reid are not powerful enough to fight their party to kill Yucca for good.
Nevadans are being screwed, but not by the Yucca Mountain Project.
It didn't have to be this way of course--people could have availed themselves of real facts and asked tough questions to the people charged to explore what to do with these materials. But Harry Reid made sure that you could neither visit the Yucca Mountain Site, nor go to an information facility where technical questions could get technical answers. He was so afraid of the truth he closed down your opportunity to learn anything other than what his mouthpiece the Las Vegas Sun pedaled.
To the propagandists in charge of leading the opposition with chants and scare tactics, they figuratively light their torches and tell bogeyman stories to the frightened villagers. They tell bedtime stories about dealing with these materials in some other way, a way that doesn't exist but never mind that, it placates the simple minded.
They treat you like children.
We are also being screwed by the loss of thousands of non-casino, science and technical positions, i.e. JOBS--lost because of the scientifically illiterate response to this project by our political representatives, especially Sen. Reid. When they speak of "starving" or killing this "beast" folks, think of a long line of highly educated, productive taxpayers, homeowners and responsible citizens departing Las Vegas for places where an education matters. I would have preferred that those who were employed at this facility lived here, sent their kids to our schools, participated in the educational institutions. But the puffery and tribal fears engendered by a small minority of activists have poisoned the atmosphere for any kind of serious dialogue with intelligence.
As taxpayers, we were not paying for the construction of this site, (which is far beyond the community of Las Vegas by the way).
User fee's paid for the site, what we ARE paying for is the court ordered FINES enforced because the government reneged on its commitment to take over these wastes and place them in an easily controllable SAFE environment rather that leave them scattered and vulnerable as they are now.
Remember all this in 2010. We deserve a real leader in the senate, not a Neanderthal that would embarrass someone with at least a 10th grade education.
Metman, I guess i couldnt have said it better. Unfortunately, this country has been under this type of control or hyteria or a combo of both, this is why we are in the shape we are now. When we learn to do what is right and to fight the ignorance that is pushed on us, the same will continue to be the norm. people will have to stop playing arm chair quaterback and learn for themselves, i cant understand why people will buy into what the press pushed on them without a full understanding.
Dear Metman, perhaps you could find a job in one of the States generating the waste? Go sleep next to the on-site storage, they probably need some more security guards.
I'm in Reno and don't want Yucca Mountain either. Yucca Mountain was a political solution to a scientific problem. It does not make sense to ship nuclear waste across the country and store it above the surrounding water table what some say is the newest earth's crust on the planet. We should be considering expanding the existing WIPP disposal site in New Mexico. It is several thousand feet under the earth in a salt dome that has had no any geological activity for a zillion years (or there abouts). Essentially I'm pro-nuclear and believe waste isn't the problem it's made out to be. See my site www.energyplanusa.com for further discussion.
Okay, lets get it started. Rmoen do all of us a favor and think a little more about this.
"waste isn't the problem it's made out to be"
If it isn't a problem then why would it matter where we ship it to or store it.
I am heavily pro-Yucca. I have done extensive research on this problem and I believe it's safe and needed. I know all the doomsday worry worts will come up with all kinds of reasons why Yucca should be killed, but here is the reason it should live.
We are spending much more money on lawsuits because Yucca isn't operating than Yucca costs. The ONLY people that are benefitting from the fight are corporate lawyers who bill for their services.
Read a timeline of nuculear waste storage here. http://www.yuccamountain.org/time.htm
Now tell me science designated Yucca Mountain. Science is trying to 'engineer' a way to make Yucca Mountain suitable.
Government scientists insisted above ground nuclear tests were safe. Thousands of tourists would flock here to watch the tests. Oops we were wrong. Sorry. Well Las Vegas can't afford anything less than perfect with Yucca Mountain. I have done a lot of research and I know there have been many serious scientific flaws with long term storage there. I'm certainly no expert in the area, but I'm capable of understanding experts opinions both pro and con. Science is not perfect.
Alright, I pulled a bushism nucUlear
Steven Chu testifies today that the country needs a "plan" to dispose of nuclear waste. A plan???? The country has a law called the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. It specifies Yucca Mountain. As long as it isn't being met, it is costing US taxpayers about $500 million per year in court ordered penalties. If Chu and Obama intentionally ignore the law, then the US government/taxpayers will owe triple damages to the utilities or about $1.5 billion/year. Either obey the law or change it, but don't just pursue a new "plan" based on the need of Obama to satisfy the political debts to a few Congressional delegates. This is not only illegal and unconstitutional, but demeaning to the office of the President.
nance: "They are going to have to fight the Democratic party to accomplish that."
Anyone else they will have to fight?
Since Nance is not willing to answer your question, John, I'll bite. Anyone else Reid or Obama will have to fight?
How about the Nevada State Republican Party?
http://www.lvrj.com/news/36525359.html
Seems the Nevada GOP are fans of taking lavish tours of Yucca. The wining and dining seems to be wearing down the state GOP's resistance to the project. How long before the NV GOP comes out in favor of Yucca and becomes a thorn in the side of Yucca opponents?
Who was in control of the House and Senate when they passed the so-called, "Screw Nevada" bill that made Nevada the only legal site for long-term muclear waste?
Democrats
Who just passed in recents months a measure to fully fund Yucca mtn in a House sub-committee and who controls that committee?
Democrats
But you guys are right that Obama has promisted to "end the notion of Yucca".
Surely, Reid and Obama, two of the most powerful Democrats in DC, can convince members of their own party to shut down permanently Yucca mtn.
That should be easy for Reid and Obama for the Democrats are soooooo against Yucca....yea right.
"How about the Nevada State Republican Party?"
Bullseye bs! And the way that was way presented, as usual, was as if nobody else was against it. As if Republicans don't exist or have a vote. One would think if that were true they would all just go home.
To be honest, it seems to get deeper every day. I can't understand why somebody who is so keen on other people's spins is so willing to...oh...wait...yes I can!
Wow....news flash from JohneVegas......Despite the fact that the Democrats have been in control of the US House and the US Senate...the Republicans are actually in-charge of both houses.
Wow......Those tricky Republicans sure are powerful.
Just an FYI, you do know that the US House is under full control of the party that is power. If Pelosi and her pals did not want a bill with Yucca funding to come up then no Yucca funding would come up.
Nice try at a respin nance. I'm not biting. You inferred it was all up to the Dems. It's not. Period.
"Go ahead Sheeple, believe what the press tells you, you need to read up and see the truth instead of complaining from your arm chair"
Sheeple Shmeeple! Look whose talking dogma boy. You haven't said a single thing.
"Just an FYI, you do know that the US House is under full control of the party that is power."
Except for that pesky filibuster thing... or the right to recommit. Remember Newt's constant whining about the "obstructionist" Democrats?
No, apparently the Democrats are omnipotent right now.
Nance's cockeyed view of reality cracks me up.
It is the fault of both parties, not just the Democrats. I would say it is a fact that the Democrats have done more to stop Yucca Mountain than the republicans, though.
Yes, the state republican leaders touring Yucca mountain is very disturbing. If Nevada is to have any luck in fending off the dump, Nevadans have to be united in opposition.
The state republican party should apologise.
theBS remark: "Except for that pesky filibuster thing"
in response to my remark on the US House: "Just an FYI, you do know that the US House is under full control of the party that is power."
Wow.....they filibuster in US House.
I guess you need to send that 411 to Pelosi.