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Re: Gov't Ownership of Waste Sought



Another useless piece of legislation.  It is already stored at the sites and
some like CP&L are lucky enough to have storage for consolidation of 4
plants into one storage site.  Furthermore, the Government already owns it.

Yes, Alaska, the hot bed for commercial nuclear power.  Sounds like a
perfect place for a disposal site.  Wonder what the Senator would think
about that.

Just get on with the thing in Nevada and quit the political posturing.

Bob Denne
ATG, Richland
----- Original Message -----
From: Mario Iannaccone <miannacc@dhhs.state.nh.us>
To: Multiple recipients of list <radsafe@romulus.ehs.uiuc.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, June 16, 1999 5:23 AM
Subject: Gov't Ownership of Waste Sought


> 07:42 PM ET 06/15/99
>
>  Gov't Ownership of Waste Sought
>  By H. JOSEF HEBERT=
>  Associated Press Writer=
>         WASHINGTON (AP) _ In what could be a break in the five-year
>  stalemate over what to do with commercial nuclear waste, a leading
>  Republican senator is offering a proposal that would keep the waste
>  at reactor sites, but shift ownership to the federal government.
>         The proposal by Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, reflected a
>  departure from the argument he and many other Republican senators
>  have long made that the government should move the waste to a
>  yet-to-be-built temporary storage facility in Nevada.
>         The proposal was expected to be voted on Wednesday by the Senate
>  Energy and Natural Resources Committee, which Murkowski chairs.
>  Murkowski said he believes he has enough support to get it
>  approved.
>         But Murkowski also has conditions on the proposal, including
>  that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, instead of the
>  Environmental Protection Agency, set radiation exposure standards
>  at a future permanent waste burial facility. The EPA has
>  traditionally pushed for more stringent standards, including a
>  requirement to protect groundwater that the nuclear industry claims
>  is impossible to meet.
>         The dispute over exposure standards was likely to pose a
>  significant problem and could determine whether the Clinton
>  administration will go along with the compromise, some
>  congressional sources said.
>         Sen. Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, the committee's ranking
>  Democrat, will vote against Murkowski's proposal unless the EPA has
>  jurisdiction over the exposure standards, an aide said yesterday.
>         Energy Secretary Bill Richardson first proposed in February that
>  the government accept title to the waste kept at nuclear plants
>  around the country, but that the waste remain at the reactor sites
>  until a permanent burial facility on Yucca Mountain in Nevada is
>  approved and completed.
>         The industry, which argues the government promised to assume
>  responsibility for the waste, rejected the idea. A number of suits
>  are being litigated over the government's failure to dispose of the
>  more than 40,000 tons of highly radioactive used reactor fuel now
>  kept at plants in 34 states. The waste is growing at the rate of
>  2,000 tons a year.
>         The issue has stymied Congress for more than five years.
>  Repeated attempts to pass legislation requiring a temporary storage
>  facility in Nevada have failed, largely because the White House has
>  threatened to veto it.
>         President Clinton has maintained that no temporary storage
>  facility should be built because it would ease pressure to develop
>  a permanent burial ground at Yucca Mountain, in the Nevada desert
>  about 90 miles from Las Vegas. The Yucca site is being evaluated,
>  but even if approved, it will not be ready to accept shipments
>  until 2010, and possibly later.
>         Murkowski and Richardson discussed the waste issue at length
>  during a recent trip to Alaska. Murkowski said he would prefer the
>  waste be taken off utilities' hands as the government promised, but
>  that there's no chance such legislation could pass and survive a
>  veto.
>         ``We've been there and done that,'' said Murkowski in an
>  interview, referring to repeated efforts to pass legislation to
>  build a temporary storage facility in Nevada that fell short
>  because of the veto threat.
>
> Submitted by,
> Mario Iannaccone,
> Health Physicist
> miannacc@dhhs.state.nh.us
>
>
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