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Lawsuit limits proposed over nuclear waste site selection
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STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- The nuclear waste commission has recommended that the government try a cooperative approach to recruit volunteer states to host a high-level radioactive waste site. But when several commissioners testified Wednesday in Congress, Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., offered another idea: Don't allow lawsuits.
Brooks, a member of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee, said that it could be difficult to find a site that would be environmentally sound and secure and agreeable to state, county and local leaders.
"Did you all spend any time considering other options other than seeking consent, such as changing the laws that enable communities around the country to go to court and delay the process almost indefinitely, or in this case years if not decades?" Brooks asked.
He said, "You are talking about a situation that your own report says is urgent, and we have already spent more than $10 billion on Yucca Mountain," the Nevada site that was terminated after persistent political and legal fights from the state.
The courts have been the battleground for lawsuits seeking to delay or kill projects that plaintiffs think are flawed or dangerous, contending the government has not followed laws to protect the public and the environment.
Besides probably being unconstitutional, Richard Meserve, a commission member and former chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, shot down the idea of limiting judicial review.
"We have a wide array of laws that involve public involvement," Meserve said. "I would think there would be outrage if we were to somehow circumvent, for example, requirements that you have environmental impact statements that involve public input and give opportunity for judicial review."
Brooks asked what the commission has lined up as a "Plan B" if no volunteers emerge.
"We don't have a Plan B," the commission co-chairman, Brent Scowcroft, said. "We believe this is a political process, and you are the political experts. There is no magic thing where you can wave a wand and think, 'This is perfect. Let's go.' "
That said, Scowcroft said, ways have been found to place unpleasant projects such as prisons and other forms of waste disposal sites. "All kinds of disagreeable things can be made agreeable under certain circumstances," he said.
The Department of Energy will report to Congress in six months with a new strategy expected to be based in part on the expert panel's findings.
Peter Lyons, assistant secretary for nuclear energy, said the agency will consult lawmakers and other interests while forming its strategy. Congress would need to pass new laws to carry out several recommendations, including forming a new quasi-government corporation dedicated to nuclear waste.
Lyons also said the Department of Energy was stepping up research through its Used Nuclear Fuel Disposition Program, formed after the disbanding of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, which operated the Yucca Mountain project.
The department plans research into whether salt geologic formations can withstand heat from decaying nuclear waste. Communities around Carlsbad, N.M., have expressed interest in hosting a repository in salt domes.
Lyons said the Department of Energy is starting research into whether nuclear waste packages can be lowered into boreholes drilled as deep as three miles into the Earth's crust and is taking fresh looks at disposing radioactive waste in granite and clay formations.
Contact Stephens Washington Bureau Chief Steve Tetreault at stetreault@stephensmedia.com or 202-783-1760. Follow him on Twitter @STetreaultDC.
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I read on Review Journal that N. Dakota has been inviting Chinese students and give degrees even they don't full fill requirement. They will be include more. Do anyone know N. Dakota has large granite zone underneath? I don't know N. Dakota politicians are inviting Nuclear dump site over there. Japan has shortage in workable males and Japanese have choice of states to send their children in USA. Inviting Chinese students, maybe a good idea but ND got problem with US Govt. Rapid creation of Chinese degreed students, not bad idea. Chinese $$$ people have been trying to get out of China's only one son in one family law which our Vice President praised a few years ago. It might give ND to have nuclear scientists to be ready for $$ billlion from US Gvt Even if it was not on the granite zone.
BTDT: I have repeatedly tried to give you a way to make sure that nuclear waste NEVER comes to Nevada, by making sure that something else gets done with it. Yet you continue to categorically dismiss that, saying it is "not your problem." I can only conclude that you must not want Yucca Mountain to go away forever, even though you SAY you do. Further, I can only conclude that you are more interested in enhancing yours and Harry Reid's own political images, than you are in actually helping Nevada. If you WERE interested in helping Nevada, why would you want to see this fight go on indefinitely, instead of putting attention into problems like the obvious drain of casino gaming AWAY from Nevada? Finally, by your continued refusal to cooperate in ANY way with the nuclear industry, and your continued crowing about it, I can only conclude that you must be more interested in punishing the supporters of nuclear energy than you are in keeping nuclear waste out of Nevada. These are simply observations on YOUR words and YOUR behavior, BTDT. If you choose to call them "demonizing", then so be it. But all that sort of petulant attack does is prove that you CAN'T respond to these observations.
former_yucca-insider:
Nuclear waste is a product of a private industry; surely you don't disagree and if you do well then you have lost any credibility.
Nuclear waste BELONGS to those private companies, as does any product of a private industry, and as you said not UNTIL it is "transferred" to federal control (in the course of being transported to the dump which obviously is not completed so there has been no transfer of ownership); you certainly agree with that.
All industries in this country are regulated, and it changes not one wit who has responsibility to solve their problems (unless of course you are one of those "liberals" that favor public bailouts of private entities?) You may agree or disagree depending on whether you are a liberal I suppose. But, for the VAST majority of private companies, their problems do NOT require public action and if they can't solve their problem that is there problem. I mean, even if I love my Ipad, and I need my Ipad, if they have problems in China building them, its not my problem to solve for them. (You probably agree about the Ipad issue, but obviously you disagree with the nuclear industry issue; I wonder if its because you were a formeryuccainsider and have some bias?)
Your argument is hypocritical, irrational, and biased.
And Tom, I listen carefully to everyone here including those who try to demonize me, which is why I have continued to respond to you.
@ BTDT: Please listen very carefully to former_yucca_insider. Yucca Mountain will never, EVER go away, until either a solution to the nuclear waste problem is found, or the Nuclear Waste Fund is returned to the rate payers, or both. Too many people have been required to pay the government too much money to solve the nuclear waste problem, to simply ignore it. You can gloat all you want, about how you and Harry Reid heroically stood up against the Sith Lords of the nuclear industry. But that will only make it worse. If you categorically refuse to see that, then you have no-one but yourself to blame for the eventual outcome. And as far as solar energy is concerned, don't be ridiculous. Of course I know solar energy is less dangerous than nuclear energy. Duh. But that does not mean solar energy has NO danger, OR that it should be exempted from all the normal safeguards built into making such a critical decision. You obviously think that only a blind fool would disagree with you about solar energy. Which only makes me want to disagree with you even more.
@BTDT, you fundamentally misunderstand the situation. It is not the private industry's choice to put the waste in Nevada or anywhere else. It's federal law. When the fuel rods leave for the repository, title transfers to the U.S. government.
Nuclear utilities have been forced, by law, to contribute to a fund for permanent disposal of their fuel. That cost has been passed to customers, and that fund is now worth $27 billion. (Nuclear Waste Policy Act)
Furthermore, you cannot ignore the role of government regulation. Utilities everywhere must answer to state commissions, the EPA, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, etcetera. Government is everywhere in this equation.
Finally, you ignore the benefits you personally have enjoyed from nuclear utilities in the Western power grid. Assuming you live in Las Vegas and are on the grid, during the summer, your AC runs on power from nuclear plants for more than two hours per day. And that power generated nearly zero carbon emissions.
Your argument is parochial, myopic, logically flawed, and ignorant.
Maybe I shouldn't write here, but this is not a leak so I am going to write. US geologists concluded that some eastern states are suitable to be nuclear waste dump sites. They will recruit nuclear scientists and engineers from other states because these states do not have supply of nuclear scientists, etc. They need universities to add such subjects. Sorry for Nevada and mid and western states. Money is going to east zone. Some of information I got sounded like US govt has been hiding to US congress' and senate's self-claimed experts. Or maybe govt does not want to disappoint politicians from wishy states? US govt. ignores Yucca now. Sorry for Yucca promoters. By the way last time I went to Nye County, people became friendly and complained to me they don't want Yucca to be Nuclear site. I kept my big mouth shut. I even did not tell them about Hiroshima disease. I used to read British spy nobles with dictionary in middle school in Japan. So. I use broken English but I haven't forgotten how to spy to get information. I also read all sort of Ninja information gathering techniques in Japan. I will let you people what govt will do later when I find.
Tom:
I will tell you what I tell everyone; if you chose to live in ignorance that is your right...in a democracy or otherwise. And if you misinterpret what I say, that again is your right...in a democracy or otherwise, but I cannot, and will not, be responsible for your inability, or otherwise refusal, to understand what I say.
And, I will say it one more time, since obviously you "misinterpreted" me the last time I said it; it is not my responsibility to solve the problems that a private industry has. That does not change because the problem a private industry has created in this instance, affects me or anyone else for that matter. Since the private companies in this case, CREATED the problem of THEIR waste and what to do with it, simply because ONE method of disposing of that waste is not available to them, does not change that it is THEIR problem.
If the waste of some private entity, lets use a tannery for example, cannot be disposed of by dumping it into a river, the private entity may not (reasonably or legally) go to the public and say "well, that's my solution, and if you don't like it come up with another one or I'm dumping it into the river."
And finally Tom, if you don't see any difference between the environmental issues raised by nuclear waste and those raised by solar and wind power, you are in the VAST minority. There is a difference, and the country recognizes it in the laws we make, and the actions we take every day.
There are states which want to get nuclear repositary plant in East. People are not opposing. I am not a geologist so I don't know what kind of Granite zone they have underneath. Those geologists investigated under Yucca, I learned. If created in USA, it will produce big employment providing these plant do not use remote controlled robots. They can get big federal money. Sorry Nevada. Nevada has to depend on business tax corrected by Casino-hotels. It does not have any talking on creating income tax.
BTDT: I will tell you directly, the same thing I tell conservative commentators like Sherm directly. That all I am doing is reacting to what YOU said. And if I do not interpret your words the way you intended them, then that is due to YOUR poor command of the language and NOT my perverseness. Again, as one example, as far as I am concerned it is immediately, intuitively obvious that the ONLY way to ensure that Yucca Mountain is ended once and for all, is to make sure that something ELSE gets done with the nuclear waste. Whether you like it or not, it is quite fair to conclude that anyone who categorically refuses to participate in making sure that happens, may not really want Yucca Mountain to end. And I do NOT think it is unfair that solar and wind power be subjected to the same careful, critical scrutiny as nuclear power. If you choose to interpret those things as "getting too personal", or "demonizing you", then so be it. That is your choice, in a democracy.
Tom:
You are better at authoring me, and creating straw men in my name than you are at disputing that the process by which the dump was forced down the throats of this state.
It would be better if the reverse was true for everyone concerned.
Perhaps the reason that you have "yet" to hear of any studies on the economic of environmental aspects of solar power in Nevada is because you are too uninterested to LOOK for them. Sadly, you have all ready made it clear that you don't want to do enough research on the subjects you speak about to become better informed, and again, its your choice, but when you do speak before you get informed, you sound...uninformed.