Reuters article re: Yucca Mtn.

[Jim Hardeman <Jim_Hardeman@mail.dnr.state.ga.us>]

Clinton Office Repeats Veto Threat on
Nuclear Bill

Updated 11:57 AM ET February 3, 2000

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Clinton
administration on Thursday repeated its
threat to veto controversial legislation
establishing a permanent disposal site for
radioactive waste produced by nuclear
power plants. 

The Senate is expected to take up the
legislation early next week. 

The legislation, sponsored by Senate
Energy Committee chairman and Alaskan
Republican Frank Murkowski, would build
a permanent disposal site in the Nevada
mountains by the end of the decade to
store some 40,000 metric tons of highly
radioactive waste currently store at 103
commercial nuclear power plants across
the country. 

Until the permanent depository is built
inside Yucca Mountain, located about 90
miles from Las Vegas, the legislation
would allow the nuclear waste to
temporarily be stored above ground at the
site. 

The Energy Department will issue a
recommendation to the White House by
2001 on whether Yucca Mountain should
be the permanent home for the waste. 
The Clinton administration opposes the
current legislation because it would
authorize the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission, instead of the Environmental
Protection Agency, to set maximum
radiation standards for a permanent waste
site. 

EPA in August proposed radiation limits
that were much lower than those favored
by the NRC. 

"Any nuclear waste legislation that
undermines the EPA's current role in
setting standards to protect public health
and the environment from radioactive
emissions is unacceptable to the
Administration," the administration's Office
of Management and Budget said, in a
statement Thursday. 

The administration estimates the
legislation would cost approximately $1.2
billion through 2005. 

The legislation would give the Energy
Department title to radioactive waste held
by utilities, who have sued the department
for not accepting spent nuclear fuel from
reactor sites, as it was required by law to
do beginning in 1998. 

Utilities contend it is unfair that they have
paid $16 billion since 1983 into a special
government fund to help pay for a waste
site that is already years behind schedule.
The legislation would end those lawsuits. 
The Nuclear Energy Institute, the trade
group that represents utilities with nuclear
power plants, urged the Senate to pass
the legislation, which would still have to be
approved by the House of
Representatives. 

"Continued inaction on this important
environmental issue is not acceptable,"
the group said in a statement. 
Environmentalists oppose storing nuclear
waste at Yucca Mountain, claiming the
depository would lie on a earthquake fault
line and radioactive material would find its
way into underground water at the site,
which would contaminate drinking water. 

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