Russian Duma puts off vote on nuclear fuel imports

["Sandy Perle" <sandyfl@EARTHLINK.NET>]

Russian Duma puts off vote on nuclear fuel imports



MOSCOW, March 22 (Reuters) - Russia's parliament postponed on 

Thursday a vote on a bill that would open the country to imports of 

spent nuclear fuel for reprocessing, and environmentalists said they 

had scored a victory. 



Last December Russia's State Duma, the lower house of parliament, 

overwhelmingly backed a preliminary first reading of the measure, 

which the Atomic Energy Ministry says will bring Moscow $20 billion 

in revenue over the course of two decades. 



But environmentalists and liberal deputies have been campaigning 

since then to change other deputies' minds ahead of decisive second 

and third-reading votes. 



Communist deputies joined liberals in voting on Thursday to postpone 

the debate for at least two weeks, a sign political support for the 

bill may be beginning to waver. 



Sergei Mitrokhin, a deputy in the liberal Yabloko party, which has 

called for amendments that would require much tighter controls over 

the imports, told reporters the postponement was "the first victory 

in the struggle against turning Russia into a vast dump for foreign 

atomic waste." 



But Atomic Energy Minister Yevgeny Adamov said the pause would only 

give his officials more time to explain their case. 



"Sooner or later they will pass these laws. I don't know when. But I 

have no doubt they will be passed," he told reporters. 



His ministry says the term "waste" is a misnomer for spent fuel, 

which Russia calls a "strategic resource" that can be reused after it 

is reprocessed. 



In a statement, the environmental group Greenpeace called the 

decision to put off the vote "a great success." 



But the Supreme Court ruled against Greenpeace and other 

environmental groups in a lawsuit they were bringing against the 

Central Election Commission (CEC) over an attempt to force a 

nationwide referendum on the issue, RIA news agency reported. 



The CEC had invalidated 600,000 of 2.5 million signatures on a 

petition the environmentalists submitted to force a referendum on the 

issue. 



Russian law requires two million signatures for a referendum to be 

held, and the election commission's ruling effectively invalidated 

the petition. 



"This is not only about ecology, it is about democracy," a Greenpeace 

statement quoted spokesman Tobias Muenchmeyer as saying before the 

Supreme Court delivered its ruling. 



"There are 2.5 million people who want to use their constitutional 

right to vote for a referendum, but some governmental agencies appear 

intent on denying them this right." 



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Sandy Perle                                     Tel:(714) 545-0100 / (800) 548-5100                                     

Director, Technical                             Extension 2306                                  

ICN Worldwide Dosimetry Service         Fax:(714) 668-3149                                          

ICN Pharmaceuticals, Inc.                       E-Mail: sandyfl@earthlink.net                                                      

ICN Plaza, 3300 Hyland Avenue           E-Mail: sperle@icnpharm.com                       

Costa Mesa, CA 92626



Personal Website: http://sandyfl.nukeworker.net

ICN Worldwide Dosimetry Website: http://www.dosimetry.com



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