Daschle: Nuclear Waste Plan 'Dead'

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

Index:



Daschle: Nuclear Waste Plan 'Dead'

Bush Proposes Delayed Compensation

Plan to Recycle Plutonium Delayed

Judge to Appoint Master in Lee Case

Long Island authority seeks new Shoreham power plant

Nagasaki A-bomb exhibition opens in St. Petersburg

TEPCO decides to suspend plan to use MOX fuel

Japan power utility bows to nuclear 'no' vote

========================================



Daschle: Nuclear Waste Plan 'Dead'



LAS VEGAS (AP) - Nevada got a boost in its fight to keep nuclear 

waste from being stored at Yucca Mountain when the incoming 

Senate majority leader put up a formidable partisan roadblock. 



``I think the Yucca Mountain issue is dead,'' Sen. Tom Daschle, D-

S.D., said Thursday after arriving in Las Vegas. ``As long as we're 

in the majority, it's dead.'' 



Since 1987, Yucca Mountain has been the only site studied to 

become the graveyard for 77,000 tons of the nation's spent nuclear 

fuel and high-level radioactive research waste. 



The Energy Department is scheduled to forward its 

recommendation next year to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, 

who will make a recommendation to President Bush. The earliest it 

could open is 2010. 



The state's bipartisan congressional delegation, Republican Gov. 

Kenny Guinn, state and city leaders and the gambling industry are 

opposed to the dump site, 90 miles from Las Vegas. The state 

Senate on Wednesday passed a bill to put up $4 million for a legal 

and public relations fight against the proposed dump. 



Daschle, in town for a fund-raiser for Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., 

spoke with reporters when he arrived at the Las Vegas Executive 

Air Terminal. 



Daschle's trip to Las Vegas was his first outside of South Dakota 

since Vermont Sen. James Jeffords left the Republican Party last 

week to become an independent, giving Democrats control of the 

Senate with a 50-49 majority. 



Daschle will become the Senate's new majority leader next week 

and Reid the majority whip, the No. 2 man in the Senate. 



Daschle said the new positions he and Reid will have ``will allow us 

to put Nevada's agenda on the national agenda.'' 



He then spoke briefly about Yucca Mountain and predicted a 

proposed ban on college sports betting won't pass the Senate 

either. 



``Because it passed on a committee 10-10, it's very likely it's in for 

a rough road,'' he said. ``I think we can convince the majority of 

senators to be opposed to it as well.'' 



Earlier this month, the Senate Commerce Committee split 10-10 

over whether to gut a bill outlawing betting on college sports, which 

is legal only in Nevada. The tie vote meant the bill survived and now 

goes to the full Senate. 



The $1,000-a-head fund-raiser at the Bali Hai Golf Club was 

expected to bring in $500,000 for Reid's 2004 re-election campaign. 

-------------



Bush Proposes Delayed Compensation



WASHINGTON (AP) - Victims of the nation's Cold War-era nuclear 

weapons programs holding government-issued IOUs would have to 

wait until October to receive any compensation payments under a 

budget proposal issued by President Bush on Friday. 



Members of Congress from New Mexico and Utah had lobbied the 

administration to include $84 million in additional funding to cover 

shortfalls in the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act. 



Jude McCartin, spokeswoman for Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., 

said the senator was disappointed the funding wasn't included in 

the proposal. 



``It means the Department of Justice is going to continue to issue 

IOUs and that is absolutely unacceptable,'' she said. 



The act, passed in 1990, was designed to compensate uranium 

miners and those exposed to radiation during nuclear tests who are 

known as ``downwinders.'' 



But the program, administered by the Justice Department, ran out 

of money last summer, meaning many people eligible for payments 

have been receiving IOUs from the government. Several have died 

from their cancers while awaiting payments. 



``We believe it's a very important program and what the 

administration has proposed is significantly increasing the 

program,'' said White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan. 



Bush has proposed fully funding the compensation program 

beginning in the next fiscal year at a cost of $97 million next year 

and $710 million over the next decade. He would also make the 

funding mandatory, meaning it wouldn't be subject to annual 

congressional budget battles. 



But none of that money would become available until October. 



``We have to look until October and even then we've got to keep our 

fingers crossed,'' said J. Preston Truman, director of the group 

Downwinders. ``On one hand everyone is so sorry for all the victims 

of the Cold War (programs) and on the other hand they don't want 

to pay for it.'' 



Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., had requested the $84 million 

emergency funding, but a spokeswoman for the senator said it 

wasn't expected in Bush's proposal. 



``It's something we intend to handle here now that its in Congress' 

hands,'' said Sarah Echols. ``We're going to get it on the front 

burner as soon as possible.'' 



She said Domenici has sent a letter to Sen. Ted Stevens, R-

Alaska, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and will 

make a request with Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., who will take 

charge of the committee when Democrats take over control of the 

Senate next week. 



To qualify for RECA, miners must have worked for at least four 

years in uranium mines between World War II and 1971 and have 

lung cancer or one of several other ailments linked to radiation 

exposure. 



Many of the mines were in the area where Utah, Colorado, New 

Mexico and Arizona meet, and many of the miners were Navajo 

Indians from the area. 



The act also covers ``Downwinders'' - those who lived in areas of 

Nevada, Utah and Arizona where radioactive fallout from nuclear 

weapons tests in southern Nevada settled. 



Miners who qualify can receive payments of $100,000 and can get 

an additional $50,000 through a defense bill passed last year. 

Downwinders can get $50,000. 



On the Net: 



Justice Department's Radiation Exposure Compensation Program: 

http://www.usdoj.gov/civil/torts/const/reca/index.htm 



DINE Care: http://dinecare.indigenousnative.org/ 

----------------



Plan to Recycle Plutonium Delayed



TOKYO (AP) - A nuclear power plant operator said Friday it will 

postpone a plan to use recycled plutonium at a reactor in northern 

Japan after local residents rejected the idea in a vote. 



The Tokyo Electric Power Co. said it will comply with local 

government leaders' request to delay the use of plutonium-based 

mixed oxide, or MOX, fuel at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant. 



``Our company decided to hold off on the use of MOX at this time,'' 

the company said in a statement, without specifying how long it 

will freeze the plan. 



In the first-ever referendum on Japan's aggressive nuclear power 

program, residents in Kariwa voted against TEPCO's plan to 

introduce MOX at the nuclear plant - the world's largest - by mid-

June. 



Sunday's plebiscite in Kariwa, a village of 5,000 residents, 160 

miles northwest of Tokyo, was held in the wake of a series of 

accidents and cover-ups that have made many Japanese uneasy 

about nuclear power. 



Japan's worst-ever nuclear accident killed two workers and 

exposed hundreds of others to radiation at Tokaimura, 70 miles 

northeast of Tokyo, in September 1999. 



The vote on the referendum, which isn't legally binding, reflected 

concerns about the safety of MOX, which critics say is a 

dangerously volatile form of nuclear fuel. It is made by mixing 

uranium with plutonium extracted from spent fuel. 



Despite the postponement, TEPCO said on Friday the company 

will continue efforts to gain public understanding so their plan ``can 

be resumed as soon as possible.'' 



Welcoming the decision, Kariwa Mayor Horoo Shinada told 

national television network NHK: ``I think TEPCO made an 

appropriate decision that shows understanding to the residents' 

feelings.'' 



TEPCO had planned to start using the MOX fuel at the No. 3 

reactor of its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant, said TEPCO spokesman 

Takashi Nakayama. 



Kashiwazaki-Kariwa's seven reactors have a combined capacity of 

8.2 million kilowatts, making it the world's largest nuclear facility in 

terms of power generated. 



Japan depends on nuclear power for about 30 percent of its 

electricity needs, and planners see the use of recycled fuel as one 

solution to the long-term problem of disposing of nuclear waste. 

---------------



Judge to Appoint Master in Lee Case

  

WASHINGTON (AP) - An outsider with a high-level security 

clearance should decide what classified documents can be given 

attorneys for Wen Ho Lee in a defamation suit the former nuclear 

scientist filed against the government, a federal judge said Friday. 



U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson said he wants to 

appoint a special master by July to supervise handling of 

documents requested by Lee's attorneys. Many of the documents 

probably will contain sensitive information about U.S. nuclear 

weapons programs. 



``I think it's a virtual certainty that some of (the documents) are 

going to be classified or highly classified,'' Jackson said. 



Lee sued the Justice and Energy departments for allegedly leaking 

information to the media to portray the Taiwan-born scientist as a 

Chinese spy. The leaks, some of which were inaccurate, violated 

Lee's privacy and that of his family, his attorneys claim. 



Lee was investigated on accusations he used his job at the 

national weapons laboratory in Los Alamos, N.M., to give nuclear 

secrets to China. Lee was charged with 59 felonies for downloading 

classified information to portable data tapes, but the indictment did 

not allege he gave information to China. 



He eventually pleaded guilty to one felony count of downloading 

sensitive material. The judge in that case said he was misled by 

prosecutors and apologized to Lee for nine months he spent in 

solitary confinement. 



On Friday, Jackson denied the government's request to dismiss 

Lee's claims of inaccuracy. Justice Department attorney Anthony 

Coppolino argued Lee had not identified specific documents that 

contained inaccuracies but was basing the claim on newspaper 

reports and statements by then-Energy Secretary Bill Richardson 

in a television interview. 



The judge said Lee's attorneys made a valid case that inaccurate, 

private information was leaked. 



``This is their only avenue to get back at the government for, in their 

judgment, making disclosures that should not have been 

disclosed,'' he said. 



On Monday, government attorneys will ask a judge to postpone a 

deposition of Lee in a defamation case filed against him by former 

Energy Department chief intelligence officer Notra Trulock. 



Trulock said he was defamed on a pro-Lee Web site that alleged 

Trulock targeted Lee in the investigation because Lee is ethnic 

Chinese. 



Government attorneys say Lee's deposition could reveal classified 

information. 



On the Net: Los Alamos National Laboratory: http://www.lanl.gov 

-----------------



Long Island authority seeks new Shoreham power plant



NEW YORK, June 1 (Reuters) - The Long Island Power Authority 

(LIPA) said on Friday it wants a small power plant built by April 

2002 at the Shoreham, N.Y. site, in the shadow of what remains of 

a nuclear power plant that was never allowed to open amid heavy 

local opposition. 



The Long Island Lighting Co. (LILCO), which preceded LIPA as the 

local utility, lost billions of dollars on the Shoreham nuclear station. 

The plant was decommissioned in 1994 without ever going into 

commercial operation after years of heated political battles. 



LIPA is now seeking proposals from generating companies to build 

a non-nuclear facility at Shoreham, with the capacity to light about 

80,000 homes. The authority issued a Request for Proposals (RFP) 

to build units with a generating capacity of less than 80 

megawatts, it said in a statement on Friday. 



Under current state law, any unit under 80 megawatts does not 

need go through the rigorous Article 10 siting process, which can 

take up to a year. 



LIPA, however, has encouraged potential responders to consider 

the possibility of building a plant that has room to boost its 

generating capabilities in the future. 



LIPA said it would enter into a 15-year agreement to purchase the 

electric output of the units that would be built. 



UNIT MUST BE READY BY SUMMER 2002 



"Long Island needs more on-island generation in the years ahead 

to meet the ever-growing demand for electricity," LIPA Chairman 

Richard Kessel said in the statement. 



LIPA projected that while there was a sufficient supply of electricity 

available to meet this summer's needs, the supply could get very 

tight during the summer of 2002 if new on-island generating 

capacity is not put into operation. 



"The Shoreham site offers a unique opportunity to locate a modest 

amount of new generating capacity at that location, which would go 

a long way toward meeting our summer 2002 needs," Kessel said. 



LIPA currently owns 10 acres of property at Shoreham, which 

includes the former nuclear power station. 



The new generation unit, or units, would be built on a portion of a 

47-acre parcel of property that LIPA is in the process of purchasing 

from Long Island's gas and electric supplier KeySpan Corp. 

<KSE.N> of New York City. 

----------------



Nagasaki A-bomb exhibition opens in St. Petersburg



MOSCOW, June 1 (Kyodo) - An exhibition displaying the 

devastation caused by the atomic bomb dropped on the 

southwestern Japanese city of Nagasaki opened Friday at a 

national historical museum in St. Petersburg. 



At the opening ceremony, attended by a 25-member delegation 

from Nagasaki, Sueko Motoyama, 70, delivered a speech on behalf 

of those whose lives were forever changed by the A-bomb in 

Nagasaki, and related her own experience of the bombing, which 

occurred when she was just 14. 



About 500 items, such as a bottle warped from the intense heat 

generated by the A-bomb and panels of pictures, are on display, 

the organizers said. 



The exhibition marks the second permanent showcase overseas of 

the Nagasaki A-bomb attack. The other display is at U.N. 

headquarters in New York. 



Civic exchanges have continued between Nagasaki and St. 

Petersburg, as the two cities have a common history of horrific war 

experiences. 



It is said that about 800,000 people, including those who starved to 

death, died during their 900-day confinement by German Nazis at 

St. Petersburg, formerly known as Leningrad in the Soviet Union, 

during World War II. 



About 74,000 people were killed in Nagasaki on Aug. 9 1945 by the 

A-bomb dropped by the United States. Nagasaki is one of the only 

two cities in the world that have come under a nuclear bomb 

attack, the other being Hiroshima. 

----------------



TEPCO decides to suspend plan to use MOX fuel



TOKYO, June 1 (Kyodo) - Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) said 

Friday the company will give up a plan to use recycled nuclear fuel 

containing plutonium at a nuclear power plant in Niigata Prefecture, 

originally scheduled for mid-June, as local villagers rejected the 

plan in a plebiscite Sunday. 



''Now is a time when we should pause (on use of plutonium-

uranium mixed oxide (MOX) fuel at the plant),'' TEPCO President 

Nobuya Minami said. 



After meeting Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Takeo 

Hiranuma, Minami told reporters that his decision followed a 

request conveyed directly to him via telephone by Niigata Gov. Ikuo 

Hirayama. 



Earlier in the day, Hirayama met in the city of Kashiwazaki with its 

mayor, Masazumi Saikawa, and Hiroo Shinada, mayor of the 

village of Kariwa. They decided to urge TEPCO to shelve the plan. 



TEPCO had planned to introduce 28 containers of MOX fuel into 

the No. 3 reactor of its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant while the 

company conducts safety checks between April 17 and July 13. 

The containers of fuel are already on the premises of the plant. 



Under Japan's so-called ''pluthermal'' project, the government and 

power companies plan to use MOX fuel in light-water reactors. The 

fuel is made by mixing uranium with plutonium extracted from 

spent nuclear fuel. The word pluthermal combines the words 

plutonium and thermal. 



But in the plebiscite, more than half of the voters in Kariwa on the 

Sea of Japan coast rejected the project. Afterward, both Saikawa 

and Shinada agreed that both city and village will not approve the 

use of the fuel until public understanding of the project increases. 



Aiming to revive the plan as soon as possible, Minami said the 

company will strive to convince local people of the need for the 

project and to win their support for it. 



Minami paid the visit to Hiranuma along with Hiroji Ota, president of 

Chubu Electric Power Co. and concurrently chairman of the 10-

member Federation of Electric Power Companies, and Hiroshi 

Ishikawa, president of Kansai Electric Power Co. 



In the meeting, the minister acknowledged that consultations 

among local government leaders have found that it is ''difficult to 

proceed with the plan for the time being,'' a ministry official said. 



But Hiranuma urged the industry to put more effort into gaining 

people's confidence in the pluthermal project, while the government 

take similar steps for its part, the official said. 



''Pluthermal is an important national policy for the benefit of the 

nation,'' the official quoted Hiranuma as saying. 



Next Tuesday, the government will convene the first meeting of a 

cross-ministry team of senior officials to deal with the issue, 

Hiranuma said in an earlier news conference. 



Deputy Chief Cabinet Secretary Teijiro Furukawa will organize the 

meeting, in which Natural Resources and Energy Agency Director 

General Hirofumi Kawano will participate from the industry ministry, 

Hiranuma said. 



The meeting will also include senior officials from the Cabinet 

Office, the home affairs, foreign and science ministries, he said. 



In Friday's meeting, Ota promised Hiranuma that the industry will 

try its best to realize a pluthermal project for 16-18 nuclear reactors 

by 2010. 

------------------



Japan power utility bows to nuclear 'no' vote



TOKYO, June 1 (Reuters) - Buckling under public pressure, 

Japan's largest power utility said on Friday it would postpone 

loading a controversial nuclear fuel at a plant in the country's rural 

north. 



Tokyo Electric Power Co Inc's (TEPCO) plans were derailed after 

residents in nearby Kariwa village opposed the loading of MOX fuel 

at the nuclear plant, the world's largest and which supplies the 

capital with a fifth of its power. 



"In view of the request that we received, we decided not to load 

MOX fuel during the current maintenance period," TEPCO said in a 

statement, referring to a formal request for a postponment from 

local authorities following a weekend referendum. 



The decision had been widely expected after the referendum, but 

TEPCO added that it nevertheless remains "firmly committed" to 

the use of MOX. 



The non-binding vote, in which some 53 percent of voters opposed 

TEPCO's plans, has put the government in a bind on energy policy. 



Nuclear power is being pushed as the solution to resource-poor 

Japan's energy needs, but a series of accidents and mishaps has 

heightened public concern over its safety. 



The referendum result has sent government and industry officials 

scrambling to reaffirm their commitment to nuclear power and to 

win back public trust. 



Anti-nuclear campaigners said TEPCO's statement was a step in 

the right direction, but had not gone far enough. 



"I do not think TEPCO's statement fully respected the wishes of 

the people of Kariwa because it said only that it will not load MOX 

during current maintenance, and not that it had abandoned MOX, 

which is what the people want," said Hideyuki Ban, co-director of 

Citizens Nuclear Information Centre, Japan's largest anti-nuclear 

group. 



KARIWA ONLY ONE BATTLE 



While Kariwa residents may have won the battle with their "no" 

vote, analysts say the wider debate is far from over given the 

massive levels of investment by companies and the government. 



The Japanese nuclear industry has set a target of having 16-18 

nuclear reactors using MOX fuel by 2010, but it has been unable to 

load the fuel at any of its 51 commercial nuclear reactors, which 

provide a third of the nation's power supply. 



TEPCO had been expected to use an April-July maintenance 

period at the No 3 reactor at the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant in 

Niigata Prefecture to begin loading MOX fuel -- a blend of uranium 

and plutonium recycled from spent nuclear fuel. 



It has yet to say if or when it will try again, but in the meantime the 

industry plans to step up its campaign to win public understanding. 



Some utilities, including TEPCO and Japan's second largest utility 

Kansai Electric Power Co Inc, have already set up in-house 

committees to promote the benefits of MOX fuel to a suspicious 

population. 



Critics say it is expensive, potentially dangerous and an inefficient 

way of using up the plutonium produced by burning uranium. 

Supporters say it reduces uranium consumption and is a way to 

use up plutonium, but their case has not been helped by a series 

of recent mishaps. 



The nuclear industry was forced to postpone initial plans to begin 

using MOX fuel in 1999 after British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL) 

admitted in September of that year that it had falsified data on MOX 

fuel shipped to Kansai Electric. 



The same month saw the nation's worst nuclear accident at a 

uranium processing facility in Tokaimura, 140 km (90 miles) 

northeast of Tokyo. Hundred of residents and workers were 

exposed to radiation and two plant workers later died. 



TEPCO shares have weathered the Kariwa set back well and on 

Friday closed Tokyo trade down 0.33 percent at 3,030 yen, up from 

a year low of 2,500 yen set on February 1.





**************************************************************************

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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