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StumbleNevada files brief backing withdrawal of Yucca application
Friday, July 9, 2010 | 2:37 p.m.
Sun coverage
CARSON CITY – The federal Department of Energy, which has spent an estimated $10 billion to prepare an application to build a high-level nuclear dump at Yucca Mountain, should be able to abandon the project, the state of Nevada says.
The state filed a brief Friday with the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission asking it to overrule the recommendation of a panel of three administrative judges that said only Congress can withdraw the application, not the Department of Energy.
The brief, prepared by Senior Deputy Attorney General Marta Adams, said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission “has never prohibited an applicant in the past from withdrawing its application.”
Adams said the 1987 congressional act designating Yucca Mountain is ambiguous and never mentions the word “withdrawal.” It’s up to the administrative agency – the Energy Department – to interpret the law, she said.
President Obama has campaigned to have the application withdrawn.
Joining Nevada in filing the brief were Clark County, the Joint Timbisha Shoshone Tribal Group and the Native Community Action Council.
The judges of the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, a subset of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, said the Department of Energy doesn't want to bow out because of safety concerns, but it cites a “matter of policy” and Yucca is “not a workable option.”
The panel of judges said it would be “illogical to allow the Department of Energy to withdraw the application without any examination of its merits.” Then Congress can decide whether to change the law or withhold funds for continuing the project, the judges said.
The Nevada counties of Nye, White Pine, Churchill, Esmeralda, Lander and Mineral want the Energy Department’s work on Yucca Mountain to move ahead. So do the states of Washington, South Carolina and the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners.
In its brief, Nevada says the regulatory commission should permit the Energy Department to withdraw its Yucca Application with prejudice – barring it from filing it again.
Adams said in the brief, “A long and consistent line of (nuclear regulatory) commission decisions hold that the commission does not second guess licensees’ decision to abandon nuclear projects.”
And denial of the motion of the Department of Energy in this case would be unprecedented, she said.
If the regulatory commission denies the motion to withdraw, it might find the Energy Department a “reluctant one performing out of a sense of duty.
“And if in the end, Nevada prevailed over a reluctant and unenthusiastic applicant (the energy department) there is the real danger that the decision would lack credibility because project supporters in Congress and elsewhere would forever claim that a more dedicated and enthusiastic applicant could have carried the days,” said Adams.
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psycho sharron angle loves yucca mountain...
just loves it...
ladies and gentlemen...
boys and girls...
me thinks deep down sharron angle hates las vegas...
thinks it is a city of sin...
and me thinks she wants to harm las vegas...
do away with las vegas...
a world without las vegas is a better world to religious zealots...
and make no mistakes...
psycho sharron is religious...
hell...
she opposes the separation of church and state...
claims jefferson was misquoted...
hee hee hee...
and...
psycho sharron is a zealot...
hell...
she is outright PSYCHO!!!
bottom line...
psycho sharron angle wants our kids to glow in the dark...
i sure as hell don't...
Yucca project will be back after this election whether Reid loses or wins. Besides without the Yucca project Reid is useless to most Nevadans. Other than blocking Yucca project, Reid has done nothing as a senator for the past 24 years other than enrich himself and his friends.
This makes no sense. The state can not over rule FEDERAL LAW! Only CONGRESS can do this! http://aBadReid.com
Hey, folks, if you see something glow in the dark, identify its rays using newest technology, before you saddle your horse or load your (pickup) truck to sue someone over that sheeet. Take any probe in the presence of your favourite attorney making sure to do the right thing.
Geiger Counter SURVEY METER:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Geiger-Counter-SURVE...
I do not want to talk politics when the lifes of innocent workers at the NTS and locals in Vegas are on the line:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0195685/
Regards
Banana_Joe
Has sharon angle agreed with this and had to take it back yet?
I'm glad to see Nevada sticking to its guns and fighting this tooth and nail.
Make those people who want this to happen spend a lot of money for exorbitant lawyer fees, court costs, court reporters and whoever else will spend money, money, money and time.
It's a good strategy to make sure they blow money left and right and receive nothing in return for it.
Until they go broke.
Then and only then will they realize this Yucca Mountain Project thing is only a pipedream and it's not going to happen.
Keep up the fight, Nevada!
Big mistake! Nevadans should not let knee jerk unjustified and unqualified NIMBY reactions sell the entire country down the road. Independent thought requires objective consideration especially when the issue affects us as well as the nation.
Liberals hate nuclear power. Obama spoke against it until it became clear the country was for it. Then he changed his public stance to declare the nuclear energy HAS to be part of our energy program for decades to come in order to attain energy independence, get off oil and provide clean energy until non-nuclear clean energy becomes available in sufficient quantity.
And yet he backs sealing Yucca mountain and wasting tens of billions (yet again). What does that tell you? It should tell you:
a) That Obama is still catering to the far left and is not an honest broker,
b) That Obama is still beholden to the lefts special interests,
c) That Obama has no commitment to Nuclear power. If he did he would insist on safe storage of nuclear waste,
d) That Obama is yet again a hypocrite as he says one thing and does another, and;
e) That Obama doesn't really care about the country. If he did he would want to finish this almost completed safe storage instead of damning millions of Americans to live with the current unsafe temporary storage that is failing.
In this instance, we could be more like Europe. Safe energy and safe storage. No one has yet proven otherwise. Objections are based on emotion and not factual data.
Yucca Mountain will never be safe.
Yucca is on active earthquake fault lines.
Greedy republicans don't care about public
safety.
YUCCA IS DEAD, LEAVE IT DEAD.
Saying that Yucca Mountain is unsafe and lies on active faults is exactly the sort of malarky that makes me want to see the judgment of the NRC staff published. They are experts in these exact matters relating to nuclear facility safety.
The license application took into account earthquakes, and they did cause damage to the repository over time, accumulating damage from successive earthquakes, so much damage that after one million years the hypothetical person 'designed' by EPA to be a "reasonally maximally exposed person" got a whopping 2 mrem per year increase in dose, an increase of about 1 percent of the local natural background in the Amargosa Valley, which is 100% lower than the natural background radiation in some mountainous areas where houses are built on or into granites, or in some midwestern states where houses are built on or into soils derived from granites. It is a really dangerous world out there, but Yucca seems to not be likely to add significantly to that danger.
You who do not agree with me ought to be calling for this legal wrangling to stop so the NRC can finish their "safety evaluation review" and publish their verdict. I am interested in the question of long-term safety: does the NRC agree with DOE license application that it could be done safely here?
Whether society goes ahead with Yucca is something for society to decide, but isn't it a decision best made with the verdict of the NRC in hand? There may be good reasons other than safety to not go forward with Yucca as a repository. Whatever society decides is fine by me. But whatever the choice of future nuclear fuel cycle, geologic disposal will be part of it. So, somewhere there will have to be a repository, and then another one, and another one, until we can get fusion power going and stop using fission.
I hope the "ITER" project in which the DOE participates succeeds in producing fusion power in my lifetime. Google it, progress is being made.
I think it never was going to happen, Reid just soaked the peoples money to get elected, therefor I suggest that the state of Nevada GIVE ME BACK MY TAX DOLLARS, that they knew they would never finish
Look, folks,
cleaning up the radioactive mess at Harrisburg caused by the accident in March of 1979 took almost 12 years and resulted in costs of more than 1 billion dollars.
That's why Obama's trust in new clean energy like solar energy is no hype but gives a lot of hope to the victims of radioactive fallouts and everyone believing in solar power plants, like me.
How hard is it to choose another spot than a former nuclear test site for new solar energy constructions and plants and to clean up the radioactive mess having been created at the nuclear test site decades ago without placing all the dangerous radioactive dump near locals' homes at Yucca Mountain.
Cannot be too hard to do, since there is a lot of desert in Nevada for another spot of new solar power plants and constructions and Yucca Mountain has been proven the wrong place to dump radioactive dump for the next thousands of years.
Regards
Banana_Joe