Vol. 3, No. 4
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December 15, 2005
Nevada's Online State News Journal
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CRIMINAL DEFENSE |
COPYWRITING
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Top News Story:
Nevada Nuclear Projects Claims Federal Conspiracy Led To Yucca Rules
Interagency Skullduggery At The Least, Illegal Conspiracy At The Most
by Johnny Gunn
In a 45-page response to proposed rules issued by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), Nevada's Nuclear Projects Agency claims there was widespread coordinated and largely secret interagency efforts involving the Department of Energy (DOE), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the NRC. The report is dated December 2 and was sent to the NRC with copies to Nevada's Congressional Delegation, the Secretary of Energy, and the president of the National Academy of Sciences among others.
Executive Director Bob Loux claims in the report that "the conspiracy was designed to circumvent" a Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that invalidated previous EPA and NRC Yucca Mountain Standards. The District of Columbia court heard that EPA standards included a 10,000-year compliance period that the court held to be too short a time. National Science Academy (NSA) reports have suggested that the high level nuclear waste Yucca is supposed to hold won't reach its maximum strength until at least 250,000 years. NSA has said the 10,000-year limit would make compliance "rather easy" but had no basis in science.
The state agency says, "This interagency effort included secret meetings and exchanges of draft rule language between the regulators (NRC and EPA), meetings and exchanges with the regulated entity itself (DOE), and even the direct interference of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)." The OMB is part of the executive office of the president.
The state believes OMB, which has no nuclear regulatory experience, "apparently ran last minute interference on behalf of DOE to further limit NRC's ability to raise legitimate safety issues in its review of the Yucca Mountain license applications." The report goes on to say, "As Nevada's November 2005 comments to EPA explain in detail, this secret interagency effort produced an EPA proposed rule that is arbitrary, unsupported scientifically, and unlawful in virtually every important respect."
According to the Nevada Nuclear Projects report, "NRC's currently proposed rule is similarly arbitrary, unsupported scientifically, and unlawful. It has a tainted and disgraceful origin." The report says NRC violated its own principles of good regulation when it participated in secret negotiations with DOE, its regulated entity to limit NRC's own ability to raise legitimate and substantial safety issues.
For a complete look at the report in pdf form, click here. The report is called the "State of Nevada's formal comments on NRC's implementation of a Dose Standard After 10,000 Years (10 CFR PART 63). The NRC's standard was posted in the Federal Register on September 8, 2005 (Federal Register/Vol. 70, No. 173/Proposed Rules, Page 53313-53320).
As we go to press there is no response from any of the agencies mentioned in the report.
DOE's Railroad project gets even more expensive
The Department of Energy (DOE) has been working on the railroad for more than a livelong day and the expense factor has now skyrocketed to more than $2 billion. The 319-mile road has been on paper to extend from Caliente in eastern Clark County north into Lincoln County, west through Nye County, south through Esmeralda County, and back into Clark County ending at the unyet licensed Yucca Mountain Nuclear Repository.
Initial plans said the project would only cost some $800 million and be ready for use in a matter of a few years. Now, DOE projects costs well more than twice that, and no projected dates for trains on the rails. Some projected costs for Yucca alone are closing in on $60 billion and there is no projected date for that facility to be open either.
Plans change radically depending on current bad press, but at the latest word from DOE, trucks and trains will bring high level nuclear waste to Caliente where it will then be sent on trains to Yucca on the new rail line. Safety factors from points of origin, that is nuclear energy power plants across the country take a back seat to getting things like a railroad built across the expansive Nevada desert.
Yucca is facing budget cuts in the current Congressional session, there is continuing fallout from representatives and senators, and Nevada's arguments in court are being heard and understood. How much longer DOE is going to continue the boondoggle is unknown at this time.
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