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House spending bill prolongs dispute over Yucca shutdown
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Photo Courtesy Of The Department Of Energy
In this file photo, a fence surrounds the north entrance to the 5-mile tunnel that loops through Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
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STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
Updated: Feb. 20, 2011 | 7:55 a.m.
WASHINGTON -- The 2011 spending bill the U.S. House passed early Saturday prolongs a dispute over a final portion of the Yucca Mountain Project.
The bill directs the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to halt efforts to close out the Nevada nuclear waste program. After its House passage, the bill was sent to the Senate, where the Yucca provision was expected to be targeted for removal by Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev.
House lawmakers voted 235-189 to pass the $1 trillion measure to fund government agencies until the fiscal year ends Sept. 30.
It contains more than $61 billion in spending cuts from current levels as the new Republican majority, and in particular its 87 freshmen, campaigned to shrink the government. Democrats charged many of the cuts were too deep and hit the wrong targets.
Reps. Dean Heller and Joe Heck, both R-Nev., voted for the bill. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., voted against it.
Lawmakers worked into the early morning hours each of the four days the bill was debated, laboring through nearly 600 amendments. Final passage came around 4:45 a.m. Saturday.
The proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository was among dozens of issues raised. The Obama administration, with a big push from Reid, has ended the program within the Department of Energy and is working to close it out at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The plan to tunnel into mountains 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas for storage and burial of high-level nuclear waste ran into opposition at each step from Nevada elected leaders and environmental groups that challenged its safety.
But in Congress, lawmakers from both parties say the administration was motivated by politics and overstepped its authority in ending Yucca Mountain, a charge Obama officials dispute.
During debate Saturday, Heller sought to blunt the Yucca Mountain language in the spending bill.
His proposal to defund the project was defeated by voice vote.
"Yucca Mountain, as a storage location for the nation's nuclear waste, is dead," Heller said. "Yucca Mountain is in my district, and our state has been dealing with this boondoggle project for literally decades."
Heller's amendment drew seven speakers in opposition. Lawmakers from both parties urged its defeat.
"There is no scientific basis for what is happening," said Norm Dicks, D-Wash., a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee.
"This project is being stopped without Congress changing the law, and I think it is a travesty."
"The fact of the matter is, this is the law of the country," said Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee. "This is the repository, period."
Meanwhile, an organization based in Heller's district lobbied against his amendment, saying it would "kill even more jobs in Nevada."
Nevadans for Carbon Free Energy, a Reno-based group whose members say they want to preserve the ability to convert the Yucca site into an energy park for nuclear fuel research, said his amendment would halt environmental monitoring at the site "and eliminate the few remaining positions in Nevada related to Yucca."
Contact Stephens Washington Bureau Chief Steve Tetreault at stetreault@stephensmedia.com or 202-783-1760.
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I'm wondering why no one is talking about thorium fueled nuclear reactors, which produce 99% less waste than conventional uranium fueled reactors, and can actually burn the stockpiles of waste at issue. These reactors were first developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratories for the U.S. DOD from the 50's through the 70's until 1973 when the Nixon administration defunded the program and fired the lead scientist because thorium fueled reactors wouldn't produce fissile material for bomb making. There are multiple websites with good info... www.thoriumenergyalliance.com is a little clunky, but there is a wealth of info if you dig around...
China is currently hoarding thorium and recently started to restrict exports of other so-called rare earth elements. Rare earth element deposits are typically where thorium is found and the U.S. has many large deposits, but the mining process hasn't been perfected so several mines in Colorado are in a state of limbo. But I'm thinking if Nevada gets ahead of the curve and builds these reactors to burn the nuke waste already here, and all that's coming, it's a win-win... get the rest of the country to pay for the reactors, Nevada gets the power, and the money to dispose of the nuke waste once and for all! Thorium does produce some waste but it is not as lethal and only has a half life of 100 to 200 years, and once again 99% less than uranium...
Does any one know what the word RAPE means,,, look in the dictionary. I going to call this little not the raping of Nevada by harry reid,,,, for years he has stored nuclear waste at the Nevada Test Site, next door to the yucca Repository, and with a little under the table money all the democrats turn their heads, yes they store in old mine shafts, lets all take a tour and go look at it, now there sits the yucca repository with its rail line, tunnels, labs, and the like and because harry dont want it, and the billions of dollars waiting to come into nevada for its use, here we sit, well what is the difference you ask, he changed the name of the Nevada Test Site to get everyone off his trail, and the trucks roll in with the nuclear waste, that well and fine, but because a few people said we dont want yucca repository harry says you turn your head we will pull the old smoke and mirror trick and have our CAKE AND EAT IT TO.....but where the raping comes in why not be honest?????harry be honest?????he will never be honest with Nevada or the American People, if we could reach the Gov. of Nevada and explain now they are in session, that Utah, Arizona, New Mexico , are all wanting to store this waste, that will bring in BILLIONS, this is with a B, but not harry, he is slipping this into the test site everyday and telling you, hes against, well the raping goes on..for a guy that took lots of money from the red light districts in Nevada to get be be where he is today, what I would call this is unprintable, lets get rid of harry.
November 6, 2012--there will be 21 Dem and 2 indie Senate seats up for reelection.
There are 10 Republican seats on the line. The dem majority at the moment is 51 to 47. A gain of 4 seats for the Republicans throws Harry out of any meaningful position of power.
Unemployment nationally is at 10%. Obama is polling at 45%. Inflation is rising and home prices are not.
Gas prices are going up rapidly.
Harry will not be Senate majority leader after 2012.
He will be a powerless Senator from a small state with a woeful economy and someone who has no sense of reality as his "biggest fan".
Not a pretty picture if you are a dem.
Things will start to turn around shortly after Obama is defeated and Harry is neutered.
None of the 10 Republicans had a close race in 2006 (they were the fittest that survived handily in the reddest states in what was a disastrous year for Republicans), and none are considered vulnerable (although some are getting old and could conceivably retire). But does anyone really think that Thad Cochran (the oldest Republican up for reelection in 2012) retiring in Mississippi — if he did — would change that from being a red — really red — state?
The Republicans are not going to lose a single Republican Senate seat in 2010, and — at this early stage — the same seems to be true for 201
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2010/11/02/more-gop-senate-gains-in-2012-2014-inevitable/#ixzz1EcTrva4g
Alvin: Is the "Angle for dogcatcher campaign" slowing down? You seem to have lots of time on your hands now to post the nonsense you became so famous for that SOMETHING must have happened. I would have thought though, for all your efforts on her behalf, and assuming she was elected to that prestigious position, you would at least have been given a job as her "collector"? Or is that what you doing here?
Radioactive wastes WERE being dumped in the sea for years.
Not by private industries, but by governments, including ours.
http://archive.greenpeace.org/odumping/radioactive/reports/history.html
After reviewing the facts, it was decided that a land based geologic repository was the responsible and safe means to handle these materials.
So we spent 30 years studying it, created a series of government standards administered by the EPA, a governing body under the NRC, while the DOE was tasked with the actual job of creating and applying for the license--now--all these are government agencies--under the authority of the laws written by Congress.
All that circular government action has in fact, led to a license submission, that a President and a Senator are blocking from even being read--by the current political appointee heading the NRC, Gregory Jaczko--Senator Reid's former aide.
Government in ACTION!
Markey said: "Accepting a gov't nuclear waste dump sounds so Chic." and I'm sure that was meant to be a tongue in chic statement.
But there are poeple somewhere lobbying for this, believe it or not. Go the the website of the Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future's and look at either the transcipt for January 27, 2011, or the video of the entire meeting of January 27, 2011. You will read the words, or hear the words, of both city and state officials, including the governor and a person with a letter from the entire state senate, suggesting that if the commission wants to make a recommendation to expand the current repository in that state or to add a new one in the state, it would be a welcome recommendation. So very, very different from here! Refreshing, really. Their government repository for defense radioactive waste has been operating almost 12 years and the shipping campaign has covered over 11 million miles without an accident involving the radioactive waste. With that experience in evidence, it is no wonder the community or even many in the state and its government are not afraid of such activities. There is opposition, to be sure, that can also be seen on the video or read in the transcript for that day, but it was a minor part of the day's testimony to this fact-finding commission. And who is running this safe repository and shipping campaign? Why it is the very same federal agency that here was painted by persons who really should know better as being totally incompetent: the US Department of Energy!
Aformerhomoerectus is as sharp as an amoeba. Deductive reasoning skills that would make a goldfish jealous.
Yep, left to their own devices, and with government out of the picture, private enterprise would have come up with a solution years ago, its called the nearest lake, or creek, or schoolyard. That is the problem with letting the people with an incentive to kill other people to save money; they do it.
"Nuclear waste is not green glowing slime spilling out of a 55 gallon drums like some want you to belive. The waste looks like steel rods and it still has energy in it, that nv energy could use to give nevadans jobs and inexpensive energy,"------------------
A little radiation is good for ya, makes ya tough. Everybody could stand a hundred chest X-rays a year. They ought to have them, too.... *grunts*
"The nation will survive this decision, and some other state will reap the jobs and will negotiate for the benefits in infrastructre and education and high-tech business improvements that can come with accepting a repository."------------ Accepting a govt nuclear waste dump sounds so Chic..