***************************************************************** 05/18/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.123 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS 1 Companies welcome drive to end 'energy crisis' 2 Power in the Northeast: Thinking locally, acting locally 3 Opinion: Energy prices - a call for radical action 4 Nuclear Critics Slam Administration 5 Power, environment collide at Point Beach 6 W.House Says Nuclear Reactors in U.S. Could Double 7 Bush Energy Plan Means 'Murder' for Calif-Governor 8 Greenpeace Dumps Coal Outside Cheney Home 9 BUSH PLAN FOR NUCLEAR POWER AND PLUTONIUM INVITES NUCLEAR 10 BNFL Statement on Bush Energy Policy 11 NET President Clapp's Statement on Bush Energy Plan 12 Transcript of Remarks in Press Conference with Gephardt 13 UCS: Bush Energy Plan a Recipe for Trouble 14 Taxpayers for Common Sense Statement on Energy Policy 15 Bush wants expansion of nuclear energy; Nevadans concerned 16 FTCR: Bush Energy Plan Will Make CA Crisis Worse 17 American Chemistry Council Statement on Bush Energy Plan 18 PSR Statement on Bush Energy Plan 19 Nat. Mining Association Statement on Bush Energy Plan 20 LCV: Bush Energy Plan Bad for Enviroment, Economy 21 ASE: Bush Energy Plan Out of Touch with What Americans Need 22 Coalition for Affordable and Reliable Energy Statement 23 ATI Participates in Formation of International Nuclear Waste 24 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 10 CFR Part 72 List of Approved 25 Activists Dump On Bush's Energy Scam 26 Nevadans concerned about Bush's push to expand nuclear energy 27 Pluthermal fuel use to face village referendum 28 Japan nuclear policy makers welcome Bush proposal 29 LDP sees nuclear as a core source of power 30 Greens: Scrap nuclear energy 31 British linked to US nuclear plans 32 White House reaffirms EPA jurisdiction over Yucca standards 33 Task force's leanings questioned NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS 1 Russia Signs Deal to Raise Kursk 2 Dutch Firm Signs Deal to Raise Russian Sub Kursk ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Companies welcome drive to end 'energy crisis' By Julie Earle in New York Published: May 17 2001 20:39GMT | Last Updated: May 17 2001 20:46GMT Oil, gas and coal companies are cheering early details in the Bush administration's plan, which proposes to build more gas refineries, pipelines and transmission lines and more coal and nuclear-powered plants. It is boom time for energy companies, already cash rich from record quarterly profits driven by surging gas and oil prices. The policy gives them an incentive for new investment. Market watchers said the recent spate of mergers and acquisitions in the US, particularly in the gas sector, would continue as companies took advantage of the good times and of higher gasoline prices. "The plan primarily provides a long-term proposal for the US's energy crisis and that means near-term market conditions will remain tight," said Matthew Warburton, an analyst for UBS Warburg in New York. The Bush plan does not include tax credits for oil and gas production, as some had expected, but it does allow more drilling and exploration and frees up oil exploration on federal lands. Companies including Anadarko Petroleum, North America's most active driller, Philips Petroleum and Devon Energy are well placed to benefit from a move by Mr Bush to expedite oil explo ration in areas such as the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve. The opening up of new territory also bodes well for oil services and drilling companies such as Nabor Industries, the largest driller in the US and in the world, and Patterson Energy. Companies that gather data for possible exploration and process it, like BJ Services, could also gain. "Opening up new land, will extend these company's growth to new levels that we haven't seen since the height of the drilling frenzy in the early 1980s," said Kevin Simpson, an oil services analyst at Merrill Lynch in New York. However, some analysts were sceptical that drilling would ever be undertaken in parts of Alaska. "This is one of the environmentalists' lines in the sands," said one. President Bush also plans to have 38,000 miles of new pipelines, which looks promising for power transmission companies. After years of flat prices and weak demand, the coal industry seems set on Thursday to thrive with support for new coal-fired plants. Mr Bush has vowed to increase coal exploration in an attempt to avoid another California-style crisis. Enron, the largest marketer of electricity in the US, on Thursday embraced the policy as "a step in the right direction". "We need to be able to get electricity from where it is plentiful to where it is needed, and to do that we need a much more efficient transmission grid with fewer road blocks," said Mark Palmer of Enron. "The policy does address the need for a more competitive system in the US and for infrastructure in the transmission grid and that opens up avenues to make the marketplace more efficient," he said. Chris Ellinghaus, an analyst for Williams Capital Group in New York said the Bush plan was "courageous and pragmatic" and offered a long-term view of the US's energy future. UK: Financial Times ***************************************************************** 2 Power in the Northeast: Thinking locally, acting locally By David Wagman, FT Energy Published: May 17 2001 09:01GMT | Last Updated: May 17 2001 09:37GMT All politics is local. That's what the late Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Thomas P "Tip" O'Neill liked to say. Given recent energy industry events in his native Northeast, O'Neill would probably see little reason to say otherwise. So when the Bush administration's national energy policy is released, it will face its first trial in the court of local opinion. Recent debate in the Northeast on three key issues of local and national importance - generation, transmission and the environment- may suggest how the wider discussion may unfold across the US. On these three issues local politics in the Northeast are driving decisions having broad regional implications. Local politics are also evident as nascent wholesale power markets challenge the way states deal with common issues. Political strains may soon show through if power shortages hit parts of the Northeast this summer as they have already hit California. A relatively benign summer power outlook issued earlier this month by the Northeast Power Coordinating Council may mask larger issues. In its assessment, NPCC said the region - which stretches from New York City through Boston and into northern Canada - should have surplus capacity during the peak week for demand, expected around July 15. The details show a less certain picture, however: + NPCC forecasts 4,900MW of excess capacity, but says 4,000MW of that is locked up in Quebec and the Canadian Maritime provinces where transmission bottlenecks will block most of that extra power from reaching US markets. The US portion of NPCC could end up with no more than 1,000MW of reserve capacity at a time when peak demand is expected to reach 54,000MW. + Existing transmission lines across parts of New York State are fully utilising capacity and cannot be relied on to deliver much additional power to New York City. Transmission constraints mean that some 80 per cent of New York City's power needs (and 98 per cent of Long Island's) must be met through local generation. In testimony before a legislative panel in March, New York public utility commission chair Maureen Helmer said that if summer temperatures reach levels hit in July 1999, demand in New York City alone could top 11,000MW and outstrip available supplies by more than 850MW. + Unlike California, where little generating capacity was added during the 1990s, new power plants are being built in the Northeast. But new plants are only part of the equation. Transmission line owners say they lack financial incentives to upgrade connections to help ensure that newly built, low cost plants are dispatched. Transmission congestion in New England has risen sharply since 1999 and is expected to double in and around Boston by 2005. "If there's a bottleneck then the cheapest power plant may not be dispatched," said Ian Davis, vice president of transmission for National Grid USA, which controls roughly 30 per cent of New England's transmission network. These issues and others will resonate across the US and Canada as politicians, utility executives, special interest groups and consumers look for a balance among rising electric demand, environmental and lifestyle protection, and the need to make a buck. Binary World Here's the irony: In its simplest form, today's digital economy relies on binary computer code to either turn a system "on" or "off". As demand for power grows, the options for electric power appear increasingly binary, too. "You can build a transmission line and a power plant, or sweat in the dark," said Doug Logan, principal with RDI Consulting. "Take your pick." The Department of Energy's current calculus values local opinion greatly when it comes to power plant and transmission line siting, and on issues related to the environment. That makes it tough for regional and national points of view to be heard. This, in turn, affect efforts to set up regional energy markets and re-enforce the grid, among other things. Local groups vowing "not in my back yard" have scuttled power plant and transmission line plans, including Cisco Systems' successful effort to block a power plant proposed for its Silicon Valley corporate park. On the environmental front, states appear willing to adopt strict measures, even if they place at risk part of their generating capacity. Recent rules in Massachusetts targeted six in-state power plants, whose output accounts for fully 40 per cent of the state's electric generation. "Siting always comes down to very local issues," said National Grid's Davis. "These projects move from bad news to worse news to slightly better news." Among recent news headlines: + In late March, the Connecticut Siting Board voted 7-to-1 to reject TransEnergie US's proposal to build a $125m, 330MW transmission cable beneath the waters of Long Island Sound to Long Island, NY. The Long Island Power Authority had identified the project as critical to improving its access to off-island power supplies. Even so, the Connecticut Board said the line would have little, if any, direct benefit to Connecticut and rejected it. "It's hard to imagine a decision more parochial," said Ashley Brown, executive director of the Harvard Electricity Policy Group. The siting board "didn't look at the benefits to New York or the region." + In April, Massachusetts Governor Jane Swift announced new power plant emission rules to curb nitrogen oxide, sulphur dioxide, mercury and - for the first time at the state level - carbon dioxide. One source said the rules move away from a decade of work toward regional air quality solutions and toward more local assertiveness. "It's incongruous," the source said. "As we're getting larger competitive markets, we see legislatures becoming more specific" in writing emission control rules. + Also in April, a report by New York State Electric &Gas criticised a statewide assessment by the New York Independent System Operator on issues including power plant siting. NYSEG said the plant permitting process has not worked. "Delayed in-service dates for new generation are the rule for power plants in New York," the report said. NYSEG cited flaws including lengthy project reviews and local lawsuits designed to block projects. No doubt, introducing competition, establishing new political orders and restructuring markets are proving to be tough. And the process still has a long way to go. Frontier Politics But if power politics in the Northeast appears confused and unsettled, consider that the region's history of cooperation on energy issues is unique in the US, a legacy of its tight power pool structure. On this score the region may stand a better chance than elsewhere of working out compromises. In Mississippi and Wisconsin, one source said, transmission lines march to the state line and stop, their step across the frontier blocked by political decisions on the other side. One sticking point in the Northeast and elsewhere has been the slow pace at which competitive markets appear to be evolving, particularly in terms of adopting new approaches to help markets operate smoothly. For example, transmission systems were designed to move power from one utility's power plants to its load center, a straightforward and largely local function. The rise of wholesale power markets strains this model by adding expectations that the lines will also carry power from independent power producers to more distant load centers. This new use taxes existing lines and complicates the issue of who gets transmission access when. It also raises local bugaboos over sacrificing Farmer Jones' cornfield for a new transmission line, which may have little if any tangible local benefit. Just this sort of local environmental issue sank TransEnergie's Long Island Sound proposal in March when environmentalists pointed to potential risks to local shellfish beds. "A significant need exists to reinforce the grid to keep up with wholesale sales as well as local load growth," said Joseph Graves, member of Washington, DC-based PA Consulting's management group. His company pondered transmission's future in a paper published earlier this year. The paper concluded that transmission is the industry's weakest link, having changed the least relative to the rest of the industry. The paper also called for a series of investment incentives to encourage more investment in the transmission infrastructure. "Until the health of the transmission sector is improved, the entire electric power industry will underperform," the report said. Underperformance could extend to generating assets, which should have ranked among the Northeast's shining accomplishments. After all, the region is one of the few places building toward a capacity surplus. And surplus is viewed by many as key to achieving workable wholesale power markets. Incremental Change But transmission constraints and a lack of incentives to expand the grid may hurt power plant developers' efforts to provide new, low-cost, environmentally friendly capacity. "Our strategy is to find financial incentives to deliver value to customers," said Ian Davis of transmission owner National Grid. Without those incentives, "we make incremental changes that get by, rather than build grand schemes that offer paybacks over 40 years." Since wholesale markets opened in 1999, Davis has seen high levels of transmission congestion in New England, which he says deter efforts to get the most economical power to customers. Congestion affects Boston and northeastern Massachusetts in particular. There, incumbent power generators have a competitive advantage as a result, Davis said. And, perhaps, an unwillingness to see competitors enter the constrained market. Even so, getting new capacity sited can be a problem, whether in Massachusetts or elsewhere. Choke Point New York State Electric and Gas last month issued a report complaining about local permitting regulations based on a recent market assessment released by the New York Independent System Operator. NYSEG said the system operator "unrealistically" assumed that 8,600MW of new generation could be built in the state by 2005. "Actual experience has shown it can take this long to work through the ineffective and inefficient licensing process," the report said. The siting problem may not be entirely local. A power developer active in the region said that federal agencies present more of a choke point. In proposing the now hotly contested 1,080MW Athens generating station near the Hudson River in New York State, PG National Energy Group needed approval from the state's siting board, as well as from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the US Environmental Protection Agency, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Federal Aviation Administration, the US Fish &Wildlife Service and the Coast Guard. "There's no one-stop shopping" and time limitations do not exist at the federal level, said Dan Whyte, director of permitting for the Bethesda, MD-based developer. The developer applied for a permit from the Corps of Engineers in February 1999 and, as of early May, was still waiting. "That could not happen at the state level" where permits were issued a year ago, Whyte said. Indeed, New York State's system gives its siting board 12 months to reach a yea or nay decision; 18 months if circumstances warrant more deliberation. Plus, the New York system has strict rules of evidence and tight requirements to determine who can intervene, standards that do not exist at the federal level. "We have 31 plants in 19 states and each of those states has a defined process for power plant siting," Whyte said. The federal government "does not have a coordinated process," he said. That may change under the Bush Administration's proposed energy policy. Part of the proposed policy may include legislation extending federal eminent domain powers to apply to transmission lines as well as natural gas pipelines. Whether a coordinated approach comes from the Administration's energy policy remains to be seen. What seems clear, however, is that state governments and local ad hoc groups feel little need to wait before acting. All politics is local, Tip O'Neill used to say. Energy only proves his point. UK: Financial Times ***************************************************************** 3 Opinion: Energy prices - a call for radical action By Steve Strongin, Goldman Sachs' managing director and head of commodity research, and Jeff Currie, senior energy economist Published: May 11 2001 15:22GMT | Last Updated: May 16 2001 21:30GMT Over the last few years, energy shortages and price spikes have become the rule rather than the exception. Like most such economic events, the immediate drivers of these shortages are clear and simple: strong economic growth and insufficient investment driven demand for energy beyond the ability of the current global energy infrastructure to deliver that energy. This occurrence, after one of the longest and strongest periods of growth in the history of the United States, the most profligate of energy consumers, is hardly surprising. What would have been more remarkable would be if such growth could occur without outstripping available supplies. The natural pattern of any commodity market is low prices in weak economic periods and shortages and price spikes in strong periods. These price spikes supply the necessary profits to fund new investment and attract whatever incremental capital is necessary to meet future demand growth. Without the price spikes, return on capital would never be sufficient to attract the necessary financial capital flows to create the basic energy supplies on which overall global activity depends. One might be tempted to conclude that the only real danger in the current situation is that regulators and politicians, under pressure from constituents, might overreact to normal cyclical price pressures and either: (1) seek to reduce profits artificially and thus hinder investment (the apparent imposition of wholesale price controls in California being the most recent example of this behavior) or (2) relax long-standing environmental or conservation prohibitions as corporations seek long-term advantages from short-term shortages. Such efforts, although understandable, mistake the cure (high prices) for the disease (insufficient supply and economic disruption). No 'normal'shortage However, the current problem is quite different from a normal cyclical shortage, and more dramatic action than simply allowing the market to function will be necessary to address the underlying underinvestment in energy. Public attention, as usual, has been focused on basic supply issues: oil supplies, natural gas production, and electrical generation. In this case, the underlying shortages in refining, transport, and transmission have exaggerated the current cyclical price swing into a pattern of rolling crises. Further, these shortages in basic underlying infrastructure have prevented efficient use of existing supplies and efficient development of new supplies. The key point is that decades of underinvestment in basic infrastructure and ill-conceived conservation efforts have compromised the market's ability to respond to these cyclical demand pressures. What should have been a relatively broad, long-lived rise in energy prices (to provide for the necessary investment flows) has become a set of sharp, localized disruptions that are doing far more economic damage and providing far fewer incentives for investment than would arise from normal cyclical pressures. Worse yet, if our forecasts are correct, the global slowdown (partly created by those disruptions) that is now under way could reduce energy demand enough that prices would retreat to normal, if not below-normal, levels. Those who want to maintain the status quo would therefore have support for their argument that the current situation is a special case and that circumstances will return to normal again without any significant changes. In our view, such a reaction would be a serious mistake. Energy is rapidly becoming a major limiting factor on growth. If the core infrastructure does not improve, energy crises are likely to become progressively more frequent, more severe, and more disruptive of economic activity. Without significant new investment, each crisis further damages the system by destroying price-sensitive demand, which serves as a pressure valve, and by giving companies incentives to stress existing facilities to meet excess demand, leading to accidents and capacity losses. Witness the current problems in gasoline refining: refineries that have been running longer, hotter, and at higher pressures than ever before to squeeze out as much product as possible are beginning to systemically malfunction and produce even greater stress on the system. Rules that demand reform We break down the core policy issues into two groups: (1) a combination of environmental, "competition," and land-use rules that need to be reformed and rationalized have severely reduced investment in transmission, storage, and processing infrastructure across all aspects of the energy sector. (2) demand (conservation and environmental) policies that further strain the market's ability to adjust smoothly to shortages by focusing on end-use taxation and local fuel specifications. Without sufficient transport infrastructure, moving surplus energy supplies to crisis locations or storing sufficient supplies to smooth temporary disruptions is significantly harder and, in some cases, impossible. The result is greatly intensified local shocks, as what should have been small global problems become intense local ones. For example, last summer, one pipeline in the US mid-continent went out for two weeks and reduced gasoline import capacity to the region by 200,000 barrels per day. Gasoline prices in Chicago jumped to $75 per barrel (as opposed to $35 per barrel before and after the disruption) and consumers faced 1970s-style gas lines and stockouts. Similarly, limited import capacity of natural gas and electricity not only helped push peak California natural gas prices last winter to more than $60 (compared with a peak of just $10 in the producing areas) and drove a large part of the state's utility industry into bankruptcy but also closed much of the aluminium industry in the Pacific Northwest. Further, the lack of infrastructure will continue to retard the development of new power-generation capacity; justifying installation of generators is difficult without the assurance of fuel to run them. Storage crunch The impact of insufficient infrastructure is not limited to local disruptions. The underlying reason that oil prices have swung so dramatically over the last four years-from $27 to $11 to $32 (and now perhaps again headed dramatically lower, if the global slowdown turns out to be a global recession) is not politics or Opec but a simple lack of storage capacity. We estimate that global inventory capacity in the 1970s was sufficient to hold 25 days of consumption in storage tanks beyond the basic minimum storage needed to run the system. Twenty five days of storage is enough to absorb a 3 per cent surplus for more than two years without severely overloading storage and forcing the kind of well closures and drilling bust that occurred in 1998. Similarly, 25 days of inventory is enough to supply a deficit of 2 per cent for 42 months before consumption has to be forced down by dramatic price spikes to meet immediately available supplies, as happened last winter when working inventories of oil and natural gas were exhausted. More important, with that kind of storage capacity to absorb imbalances, prices can give producers an incentive to drill more or prompt consumers to conserve and thereby bring the system back into balance in an orderly fashion. Since the 1970s, virtually no new storage has been built, but 15 per cent has been eliminated as a result of rationalization and consolidation in the industry. Over the same period, the size of the market has increased dramatically from a baseline demand of 58m barrels per day to 75m. As a result, global working storage can now hold only seven days of consumption. More to the point, such a small amount of working storage now exists that a 2.5 per cent surplus or deficit would overwhelm the system in less than nine months - hardly sufficient time for drilling to begin, let alone to produce new supplies. Moreover, nine months is hardly a sufficient amount of time for consumers to alter their consumption patterns significantly. Consequently, the market now speeds from one extreme to another (from $30 oil to $12 and back to $30), with hardly enough time to adjust to the last peak or trough. In 1998, oil wells were shut and oil and natural gas drilling programs curtailed precisely when they needed to expand to meet the demands of 2000. Storage capacity is insufficient as investment in new capacity involves dealing with environmental liabilities (not only for known dangers but also for those yet to be discovered), significant local resistance, and the need for transportation from producing areas to consuming areas. All of these factors raise similar environmental and regulatory issues as the storage tanks themselves but often involve different governmental agencies and even different governments. In addition, transmission often crosses governmental boundaries such that the environmental risks will accrue to one area and the economic benefits to another, making approval slow at best. Worse, competition and environmental rules governing transport often require that producers share transmission openly in the market at regulated prices. Thus, producers cannot even guarantee that the transport they build will be available for their own production, even though they will have to bear the full environmental and operating risks. As a result, natural gas drilling tends to be dominated not by new areas with high return on investment but by old areas with sufficient infrastructure. Less is invested, and what is invested is less productive than it would be if infrastructure were more easily developed. Similar issues affect the development of refinery capacity, and additional problems are created by an ever-changing set of regional fuel specifications. These changing fuel specifications have forced refiners to make low-return investments to upgrade existing facilities, thus severely reducing the willingness of corporations to invest in new facilities. Impeding fuel shifting The second set of policy issues that have exaggerated the current crisis involve demand (conservation and environmental) policies, which further strain the market's ability to adjust smoothly to shortages by focusing on end-use taxation and local fuel specifications. Such policies impede the ability to shift between fuels and push price-sensitive industrial energy use out of the major developed economies into the developing economies. Without these price-sensitive users (which can more easily cut usage as prices rise, bringing demand down to meet local supply requirements), the market is forced to push prices higher and impose disruptive demand reductions to bring local demand in line with local supplies. Worse, the net result of such policies is higher energy use and higher pollution, as developing world production facilities are typically less energy efficient, have fewer environmental controls, and need more fuel-intensive transport to connect to consumer markets. A call to arms We think that it is time to deal not with the way we would like the system to work - stable and smooth, with environmental rules leading to the intended consequence, not simply displacing the location of pollution and use - but with the reality of how it does work. The regulatory morass that impedes infrastructure investment must be radically simplified. Conservation and environmental concerns need to be addressed, with an eye toward flexibility rather than constraint: with research and subsidy rather than selective taxation, with the trading of impact credits rather than approved fuels, with the elimination of constraints and the opening of markets to true competition rather than controlled deregulation, with free entry rather than open-access regulation. The current debate is increasingly cast as a trade-off between environmental goals and economic requirements. It should be recast as an economic discussion of how best to achieve environmental goals with minimum economic impact. Harmonized taxation of negative environmental impacts with credits to developing countries and cleansing technologies (such as catalytic filters) can harness the power of the market to find economically efficient solutions to environmental problems. Policy 'solutions' dictated by governments inevitably lead to overspecialization and too much reliance on 'best' solutions. Economic solutions depend on diversification of risk and flexibility of response. Letting the market work requires time and trust in human ingenuity, which is often lacking in policy discussions. How to best address the current energy crisis is not clear, but we should not expect it to be. Markets create solutions by experimentation, not by pedantic recitation. Markets fail to find solutions when the consequences of an action, such as pollution, are not fully borne by the decision-maker. It is here that taxation has a role but only in terms of fully costing consequences, not in specifying solutions (for example, tax carbon dioxide and sulphur, not gasoline or coal). Only in this way can the market find the full-cycle environmental solution that will also provide the needed energy in the most efficient manner possible, in terms of both economic and environmental consequences. The long-term consequences of either allowing our energy infrastructure to remain inadequate or sacrificing environmental concerns in the name of economic expediency are unacceptable. Finding the middle ground will require the type of imagination and flexibility that only markets can create. Policy-makers should not abdicate their responsibility to deal with true externalities, such as pollution, but they also should not presume to have the ability to divine the correct solution. UK: Financial Times ***************************************************************** 4 Nuclear Critics Slam Administration May 17, 2001 WASHINGTON- A Bush administration proposal to revive the practice of nuclear fuel reprocessing brought a sharp response Thursday from critics who fear it would increase the danger that terrorists could obtain plutonium. The White House task force on energy recommended that in developing the next generation of civilian nuclear reactors, the United States "should re-examine its policy" toward reprocessing and recycling nuclear fuel. If pursued, the recommendation would revive a program that has been largely abandoned since the cancellation in 1994 of a breeder reactor program at a federal research lab in Idaho. Developed fully, this would allow a reduction of nuclear waste and be "cleaner, more efficient, less waste-intensive and more proliferation resistant," the Cabinet-level task force report on energy options said. Nuclear nonproliferation advocates complained that this could lead to broader acceptance of reprocessing by the civilian nuclear industry, which was abandoned in the 1970s because of worries about nuclear proliferation. "This is an invitation to catastrophe," said Paul Leventhal, president of the Nuclear Control Institute, a nonproliferation advocacy group. He said this kind of "push for nuclear power isn't the way to meet urgent energy needs." In reprocessing, plutonium is separated from other radioisotopes in used reactor fuel and, in some cases, used again as fuel. Opponents fear that if left in the civilian nuclear program, plutonium might be obtained more readily by terrorists or rogue states for bomb making. Although reprocessing is accepted in Europe and Japan as part of the nuclear fuel cycle, it has not been revived by any U.S. president since President Carter abandoned it in the 1970s. However, the Energy Department has a prototype facility at the Argonne West laboratory in Idaho for research into so-called "pyroprocessing," a form of fuel reprocessing. Pyroprocessing had been part of the government's breeder reactor program that was canceled in 1994 and is now used to stabilize old reactor fuel from the breeder program and prepare it for disposal, said Paul Pugmirer, a spokesman for the laboratory in Idaho. The president's energy task force recommended that the Idaho research be turned again to developing fuel recycling technology possibly to be used in the next generation of nuclear reactors. It signals a desire by the administration to get back into the breeder reactor business, said Arjun Makhijani, a nuclear physicist involved in the anti-nuclear movement. "Pyroprocessing is the tail that seems set to resurrect the breeder reactor dog," said Makhijani, president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research. Pugmirer said the plutonium left over from pyroprocessing, or electrolytic separation, is impure and contains other radioisotopes. As a result, he said, it is highly radioactive, could not be transported easily or diverted and is not suitable for weapons. The program's critics disagree. The impurity will not make a difference "if you're desperate for plutonium and want to make a crude bomb," said Makhijani. Additionally, he said, if the United States pursues pyroprocessing, it will have to share the technology with other countries leading to proliferation of this form of reprocessing technology. "It's a huge proliferation problem," said Makhijani. "I'm surprised to the extent they are willing to jettison 25 years of nonproliferation policy without a serious debate in the context of more energy production." --- On the Net: National Energy Policy text: HTTP://www.energy.gov/HQPress/releases01/maypr/energy-policy.htm Argonne West National Laboratory: http://www.anl.gov/ Nuclear Control Institute: http://www.nci.org/home.htm Institute for Energy and Environmental Research: http://www.ieer.org/ All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 5 Power, environment collide at Point Beach JS Online: Nuclear plant workers, campers look at Bush plan from different angles By MARK JOHNSON of the Journal Sentinel staff *Last Updated: May 18, 2001* Two Rivers - On the day President Bush explained how he plans to deal with the energy problem - a problem so grave, according to his plan, that it threatens the nation's economy and security - the Point Beach area provided fertile ground for the growing national debate. Bush's Energy Policy *Photo/Rick Wood* Nuclear fission, at the Point Beach Nuclear Plant north of Two Rivers, produces heat that forces steam through this electrical generator, one of two that provide more than 1,000 megawatts of electricity for Wisconsin. SUMMARY President Bush's energy plan would: • Build up to 1,900 new electricity generating plants by 2020 - a private sector investment that could top $500 billion. • Build new nuclear power plants. • Open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska for oil and gas drilling. • Ease or streamline regulatory barriers that slow construction of power plants and drilling for oil and gas. • Grant the federal government the right to seize private property needed for rights of way to build additional electric power lines. • Build 38,000 miles of new gas pipelines. • Build more oil refineries "to meet the needs of consumers." • Expand federal support for hybrid fuel cars, research into renewable energy resources and fuel-efficient heating and power equipment, with $10 billion in federal spending or tax credits. *Hearst News Service* Along a few miles of the Lake Michigan shore, 18-year-old Sean Muir tended to a small fire at his campsite in the Point Beach State Forest, while to the north, Tom Kendall supervised engineers at the Point Beach Nuclear Plant. The plant and its companion plant at Kewaunee supply 20% to 25% of Wisconsin's electricity. Within roughly five miles of each other, the state forest and the nuclear plant formed a nexus for the competing interests in the energy-environment debate. The lake lends the state forest its grandeur and natural beauty, provides drinking water to 10 million residents in four states and offers a place for fish to roam and anglers to pursue them. The lake also provides water to cool the steam at the nuclear plant. And the lake offers a tantalizing prospect to companies hoping to search beneath its beds for oil and gas. At the state forest and the nuclear plant, the complexity of the energy issue comes into focus. The Point Beach area is a place where the state's reputation as a destination for outdoorsmen in on display. But it is also a place where our national energy consumption becomes a rumbling reality, where many of the vacationers and outdoorsmen arrive in gas-guzzling pickups and campers. Here $3-a-gallon gas is a worrisome and depressing prospect. But to avoid $3 gasoline, would they approve of new drilling for oil and gas in Lake Michigan, an idea under consideration in Michigan? For some, like Muir, that is a worrisome and depressing prospect. "I'm quite against that," said Muir, who came to the state forest for a weekend of camping after finishing his freshman year at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. "I'm quite anti-Bush. Drilling in Lake Michigan especially hits close to home. I would hate to see oil floating on top of it some day. That would be really depressing." Muir drove a fuel-efficient Toyota up to Point Beach State Forest, and said he takes the bus often in Milwaukee. He said that if oil supplies dwindle and prices rise, he would be willing to conserve much more - "I would naturally start using less." But the Bush plan - and the nation's energy problems - go well beyond exploration, to issues of conservation and renewable energy, and to the streamlining of the licensing and relicensing processes for nuclear plants such as the one a few miles from Muir's campfire. The nuclear policy is another part of the Bush plan that dismays Muir. "That doesn't sound good, just having nuclear power plants walk in and get everything they need," he said. Engineer likes what he hears But at the nuclear plant, the Bush announcement came as good news to Tom Kendall. As a teenager Kendall joined protests against nuclear power; he now believes in it. "As an engineer, I've got to say, conservation is not going to keep us going in the standard of living we currently have. There's just not enough to conserve," said Kendall, a 42-year-old mechanical analysis supervisor and father of three. "As an environmentalist, I'd like to see less of a dependence on oil, coal and gas. Which leaves what? Nuclear and wind and solar power." Kendall is not the only worker at the nuclear plant who once opposed nuclear power. Mary Sipiorski, the plant's 40-year-old manager of industrial health and safety, studied environmental chemistry in college, considered herself an "environmentalist" and disliked nuclear power. "I don't think I really went and sought out both sides of the story," she said, adding, "I think the nuclear industry has changed a lot. There are so many safeguards. There's so much to make sure an incident won't happen." The plant's workers are, of course, not simply suppliers of power, but also consumers. Tom Kendall has seen his energy bills rise by about 70%, mostly because of the sharp rise in the cost of natural gas. While workers were pleased to see nuclear power represented as a part of Bush's proposed solution to the energy crunch, they had mixed feelings about other aspects of the plan. "I looked at the plan and at this point, I am uncertain it will satisfactorily resolve all the problems, but I don't see a better plan out there," Sipiorski said. In particular she questions whether the increase in the use of fossil fuel plants, especially natural gas, is realistic. "We don't have the infrastructure right now," she said, pointing to the pipelines that would be needed. Still, at the nuclear plant, which opened in the early 1970s and now employs 800 workers, the Bush plan is more than just theory. It just might be the future. Licenses to run out The licenses for the plant's two units are due to run out in 2010 and 2013 unless they're renewed, said Mark E. Reddemann, the site vice president for the Kewaunee and Point Beach plants. By sometime next year, operators will complete studies on the renewal question and make a recommendation to the board of directors of Wisconsin Electric Power Co., owner of the Point Beach plant. The decision will turn on whether it would be "cost-effective or financially attractive" to renew the respective licenses for up to 20 years, Reddemann said. So far, he said, he's found nothing to argue against renewing the license for up to 20 years. Streamlining a renewal process, as Bush has suggested, could save both the plant and ultimately consumers. The process now takes four to seven years. "Making it shorter does result in us having to spend less money," Reddemann said. Frugal campers Back at the state forest, Judie and Bob Lischka of Tisch Mills arrived for a weekend of camping in their Ram pickup, 13 miles to the gallon. This year, the retired couple is camping closer to home because of gas prices. They saw both good and bad in the energy outlook. "I think we have to be aware that we're going to run out if we aren't careful," said Judie Lischka, 62. "I think we have to look to new resources and I think we have to look to wind and solar as well as conservation." But not Lake Michigan, said Bob Lischka, a 69-year-old retired machinist. "Leave the lake alone." He has lived near the nuclear plant and has no fear of that, he said. He is hopeful that the energy outlook will improve. "The only thing it can do is get better," he said. "Can't get any worse than what it is." Appeared in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel on May 18, ***************************************************************** 6 W.House Says Nuclear Reactors in U.S. Could Double Thursday May 17 12:12 PM ET By Tom Doggett WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration said on Thursday the United States could increase its use of nuclear power by doubling the number of reactors at many nuclear power plant sites already licensed by the federal government. As part of its recommendations for a comprehensive national energy policy unveiled by President Bush ( - ) in St. Paul, Minnesota, a White House task force said building more nuclear reactors at existing locations avoids ``many complex issues'' associated with finding new sites. ``Many U.S. nuclear plant sites were designed to host four to six reactors, and most operate only two or three; many sites across the country could host additional plants,'' the task force said in its report to Bush There are currently 103 nuclear reactors operating in 31 states. Nuclear energy accounts for 20 percent of all U.S. electricity generation and more than 40 percent of power generation in 10 states. No new nuclear plants have been built since the 1979 accident at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island plant, where the failure of the plant's water cooling system led to the partial melting of a reactor's uranium core. That $1 billion accident effectively halted the U.S. nuclear industry in its tracks. Some environmental groups have said they will try to block any new nuclear plants. In addition to safety issues, the green groups contend that a key problem is what to do with all the highly radioactive waste from the 103 plants now in operation. The cabinet-level task force said about 12,000 megawatts of additional nuclear electricity generation could be derived from ''uprating'' plants, a process that uses new technologies and methods to increase the level that a plant could operate without decreasing safety. One megawatt provides enough power for about 1,000 homes. The task force recommended that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission speed the approval process for licensing new nuclear reactors that use advance technologies. The report also said the agency should facilitate the industry's efforts to expand power generation by uprating existing nuclear plants safely. Many nuclear utilities are planning to extend their licenses for another 20 years, and the task force said the administration should encourage the NRC to relicense existing nuclear plants that meet or exceed safety standards. As many as 90 percent of the licenses for current operating plants may be renewed, the task force said. Separately, the task force said 2,000 megawatts of power could be added by increasing the operating performance of nuclear plants to 92 percent capacity, up slightly from the current industry average of 90 capacity. The White House panel acknowledged that storing spent fuel from nuclear reactors remains a problem and urged the administration to use the ``best science'' when deciding on a permanent waste storage site. The task force made no recommendation on where a storage site should be located, but noted the administration will continue to study whether spent nuclear fuel should be stored at Yucca Mountain in Nevada. It also urged Congress to renew the Price-Anderson Act, which expires in August 2002 and shields nuclear power plants from catastrophic liability costs. A nuclear industry trade group praised the White House energy report. ``The White House rightly has recognized that nuclear energy plays an essential role in helping our nation achieve its economic and environmental goals,'' said Joe Colvin, president of the Nuclear Energy Institute. ``It sends an important message to Wall Street ... that national policy at the highest level envisions continuing and even greater reliance on nuclear power as part of our long-term energy strategy.'' Copyright © 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 7 Bush Energy Plan Means 'Murder' for Calif-Governor Thursday May 17 4:39 PM ET By Andrew Quinn SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Beset by blackouts and budget-busting power bills, California found no comfort Thursday in President George Bush's emergency energy plan, which Gov. Gray Davis (news - web sites) said let power generators ``get away with murder.'' ``California is the only state in America which has faced blackouts and astronomical electricity prices. We are literally in a war with energy companies which are price-gouging us,'' Davis told a news conference in Sacramento. ``Just saying that over the long haul everything is going to work out is turning a blind eye to the bleeding and hemorrhaging that is taking place in this state.'' California's energy crisis, rooted in its failed 1996 experiment with power deregulation, has already caused six days of rolling blackouts and pushed the state's largest utility to seek bankruptcy protection. The emergency this week forced state regulators to approve the biggest power rate hikes in California history amid warnings of routine blackouts to come this summer. Bush, declaring that the West Coast woes and record high gasoline prices around the country have combined into the most serious U.S. energy shortage since the 1970s, unveiled his plan Thursday for dealing with the crisis. The proposal, drawn up by a team headed by Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites), called for heavier reliance on oil, coal and nuclear power, and $10 billion in tax credits for conservation measures. But while expressing concern over the energy crisis stalking the nation's most populous state, Bush offered little in the way of immediate solutions for California's woes. ``DREAM COME TRUE'' FOR BIG OIL The state's Democratic leaders quickly proclaimed the strategy a dangerous cop-out that pandered to big energy producers while leaving 34 million Californians at the mercy of spiraling wholesale power prices. ``For Big Oil and other suppliers, the Bush Energy Plan is a dream come true,'' the state's senior Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein (news - bio- voting record) said in a statement. ``But among those most left behind are the people and businesses of California who have been under siege by electricity and natural gas marketers bent on gouging every cent they can from a broken energy market that the Bush Administration has refused to help remedy.'' David Freeman, Davis' top power adviser, said Bush's reliance on production represented ``a pipe dream for the oil and gas boys'' while doing nothing to address the immediate shortages bringing California to its knees. ``The main problem we have is not his energy plan, it's the fact that the price of electricity has gone crazy at the wholesale level and his regulatory agency is on sit-down strike,'' Freeman said. Davis, who has repeatedly blasted the Bush Administration for ignoring his calls for federal caps on wholesale power prices, said Thursday's long-awaited report on national energy policy was a disappointment that failed to address the critical issue of temporary price relief. ``By not doing anything you're allowing the price gouging energy companies, many of whom reside in Texas, to get away with murder,'' Davis said. With California's total power bill estimated at between $50-$60 billion this year -- up from just $7 billion two years ago -- Davis said the situation demanded more creative thinking from Bush and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (news - web sites) (FERC). One way to help, Davis said, would be for the FERC to order massive refunds from energy companies found to have charged unreasonable prices for power. While California power grid managers say they see at least $6 billion in such charges, the FERC has thus far ordered just over $100 million refunded. ``The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission could take a much more aggressive approach to refunds...that would send a signal to energy companies that they cannot gouge.'' Davis' dim assessment of Bush's energy strategy was echoed by California consumer and environmental groups, which said the proposal marked a ``dig-it-up-and-burn-it-up'' push by a few major oil companies. ``President Bush (news - web sites) is looking backwards at technologies which are dirty, unsustainable and unreliable, relying too much on advice from his Texas buddies,'' Terri Olle, staff attorney of the California Public Interest Research Group (CALPIRG) said. Copyright © 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 8 Greenpeace Dumps Coal Outside Cheney Home Thursday May 17 3:29 PM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The environmental group Greenpeace dumped a mound of coal and oil barrels on Thursday outside Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites)'s official residence in a protest against the Bush administration's energy plan. The Greenpeace protest came as President Bush (news - web sites) unveiled recommendations of an energy task force led by Cheney, which increases energy production and encourages conservation. Several tons of coal and a handful of oil barrels blocked an entrance to Cheney's residence on the grounds of the Naval Observatory in northwest Washington and activists carried banners with slogans such as ``Bush/Cheney Energy Scam.'' ``The Bush/Cheney energy plan is not an energy plan, it's an energy scam. The Bush/Cheney plan could have been written by the oil industry, the coal industry and the nuclear power industry,'' said Greenpeace activist Andrea Durbin. Police observed the truck dumping the coal and took down the names of those involved. There were no arrests. A spokeswoman for Cheney declined comment on the incident. In Amsterdam, earlier on Thursday, Greenpeace International slammed Bush's energy plan, saying the measures would increase the U.S. output of global warming gases. Greenpeace climate policy director Bill Hare described the conservation measures as ``window dressing'' and said the call to increase fossil fuels use ran counter to efforts in other industrialized states to reduce ``greenhouse gas'' output. A U.N. scientific body has said greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide produced by the burning of fossil fuels, will contribute to warming of the earth's surface. That in turn will lead to higher ocean levels, dramatic changes in weather patterns and greater frequency of severe storms. ``This plan is going to substantially increase U.S. greenhouse gas emissions at a time when most of the industrialized countries are trying to reduce them,'' Hare told Reuters. In March, Bush drew an international outcry by rejecting the Kyoto Protocol (news - web sites), which calls on industrialized countries to cut output of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, by an average of 5.2 percent from 1990 levels by 2010. Bush said he rejected the pact, which has not been formally adopted by the international community, because it did not require emissions cuts by developing nations and would damage the U.S. economy. Hare, who described the new Bush plan as ``profoundly depressing,'' said Greenpeace would still push for ratification of the Kyoto Protocol without the United States. Copyright © 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 9 BUSH PLAN FOR NUCLEAR POWER AND PLUTONIUM INVITES NUCLEAR ACCIDENTS AND PROLIFERATION 5/17/2001 NCI Press Release on Bush Energy Plan Paul Leventhal Steven Dolley 2 57 2001-05-17T17:35:00Z 2001-05-17T17:43:00Z 2001-05-17T17:43:00Z 2 936 5336 Dell Computer Corporation 44 10 6552 9.2720 0 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Thursday, May 17, 2001 (202)-822-8444; dolley@nci.org The Nuclear Control Institute today released the following statement of NCI President Paul Leventhal in response to the Bush Administration’s release of its energy plan: “The Bush Administration’s call for a major expansion of nuclear power and for reconsideration of reprocessing and use of plutonium, an atom bomb material, as reactor fuel, is a 21st century siren’s song.  This invitation to catastrophe is especially worrisome because it is so misinformed. “A push for nuclear power isn’t the way to meet urgent energy needs.  New plants could not be brought on line fast enough to offset present electricity shortages and would do little to reduce greenhouse gas emission, two-thirds of which come from the transportation and other sectors.  Energy efficiency and alternative energy measures could be implemented to offset the need to build any new nuclear plants, thus avoiding reactor-safety and weapons-proliferation risks associated with nuclear power.  (See today’s *New York Times* op-ed article at http://www.nci.org/oped.htm.) “The Bush energy plan endorses consideration of conventional reprocessing for waste management, which also separates plutonium for use as fuel in reactors.  It also presses for pyroprocessing and accelerator transmutation of plutonium and other long-lived radioactive products in nuclear reactor spent fuel.  Both approaches to reprocessing are uneconomic and dangerous.  "The plan makes no mention of the enormous cost projected for establishing a pyroprocessing and transmutation system.  The Department of Energy estimated in 1999 that this program would cost $280 billion and take 100 years to complete.  Transmutation, which involves pyroprocessing, reprocessing and sub-critical nuclear reactors, is highly problematical and does not eliminate the need for a final waste repository.   “The Bush energy plan cites the reprocessing experience of Britain, France and Japan as an example for the United States to follow.  In fact, neither France, Britain nor Japan has a long-term plan to dispose of high-level waste associated with reprocessing.  They are currently struggling with what to do with reprocessing waste and growing stockpiles of weapons-usable plutonium. “The French national utility recently admitted that reactor fuel made with separated plutonium is three to four times more expensive than the conventional fuel made with low-enriched uranium that cannot be used in bombs.  “The British plutonium program has proved an economic and technological disaster, with a stockpile of some 70 metric tons of separated plutonium and no domestic utilities willing or able to use it.  The British Industrial Forum recently declared: “Proliferation is a major issue in the nuclear fuel cycle.  Nuclear power may become more acceptable to the public if reprocessing is shut down.” “The Japanese plutonium program is frozen in controversy because of safety and security concerns and high costs associated with mixed uranium-plutonium oxide (MOX) fuel and due to an accident in 1995 which closed the Japanese breeder reactor, Monju. It is also generating tensions in East Asia as Japan’s neighbors wonder why the Japanese are accumulating such a large stockpile of atom bomb material. The only good thing that might come from President Bush’s dalliance with plutonium is that his plutonium plan will inspire close scrutiny and expose the lie that the European and Japanese reprocessing programs have been living, sheltered from market forces and shielded from public debate by the government-owned monopolies that run them.  Close scrutiny will also expose the shallowness of the arguments put forward by the nuclear industry’s friends on Capitol Hill, who have been pushing the Bush Administration to reverse the decisions against reprocessing made in the Ford, Carter and Reagan Administrations and to follow the Europeans and Japanese instead. In addition to the security concerns associated with keeping commercial plutonium out of the wrong hands, there are also major safety concerns associated with the processing, transport, storage and use of this deadly carcinogen.  A speck of plutonium the size of a pollen grain, if caught in the lungs, causes cancer. A recent study by NCI’s Scientific Director, Dr. Edwin Lyman, to appear in the next issue of the Princeton University journal *Science & Global Security* (http://www.nci.org/lyman-mox-sgs.pdf), shows that a power reactor that is fueled with plutonium fuel (MOX) fuel in one-quarter of a reactor’s core, would cause 100% more latent cancer fatalities in the event of a severe reactor accident, compared with the same accident involving a reactor with all-uranium fuel in its core.  An accident involving a 100%-MOX core could result in a 300% increase in cancer fatalities.   The Bush Administration is now pushing a program to dispose of excess weapons plutonium by turning it into MOX fuel for use in U.S. power reactors.  This program opens the door for reprocessing and reuse of plutonium from commercial reactor fuel.  Fuel made with weapons plutonium, a different grade than commercial plutonium, would kill 25% more people in a severe reactor accident, compared with all-uranium fuel, according to Dr. Lyman’s study.  This program is even more dangerous in Russia where reactor safety and materials security fall far below western standards. Surplus weapons plutonium in the U.S. and Russia, as well as commercial plutonium worldwide, should be immobilized in existing highly radioactive, self-protecting nuclear waste.  The Bush Administration is taking the most dangerous course, and setting the wrong example, by advocating the separation of plutonium from commercial spent fuel and by killing off funding for the immobilization program to dispose of military plutonium as waste rather than use it as fuel.” *Note to editors:  Papers on energy efficiency, energy alternatives, and proliferation risks of nuclear power from NCI’s April 9 Conference, “Nuclear Power and Nuclear Weapons: Can We Have One Without the Other?,” can be found at http://www.nci.org/conference.htm.* ***************************************************************** 10 BNFL Statement on Bush Energy Policy U.S. Newswire 17 May 12:54 Statement by BNFL Chairman on Bush Energy Policy To: National Desk, Energy Reporter Contact: BNFL Press Office, 011-44-207-222-9717; Web site: http://www.bnfl.com WASHINGTON, May 17 /U.S. Newswire/ -- BNFL Chairman Hugh Collum issued the following statement in response to the Bush Administration's announced energy policy. BNFL is the parent company of U.S.-based Westinghouse Electric Company. "We are very pleased with the Bush Administration's proposals. If the full potential of the proposed changes are realised in the United States, BNFL will be well positioned to provide nuclear reactor technology and associated fuel, equipment and services through Westinghouse, with their recently licensed advanced reactor system." -- Hugh Collum, chairman Westinghouse Electric Company is wholly owned by BNFL. With headquarters in Monroeville, Pa., Westinghouse offers a wide range of nuclear plant products and services to utilities throughout the world, including fuel, spent fuel management, service and maintenance, instrumentation and control, and advanced nuclear plant designs. BNFL is a leading specialist in nuclear technology and a global supplier of nuclear fuel, products and services. Currently, about a third of BNFL's sales comes from the Westinghouse Electric business, which manufactures fuel and services nuclear reactors around the world; a quarter comes from the recycling of UK and overseas customers' fuel; a further quarter of sales comes from operating the UK's Magnox power stations. The remainder of BNFL's business is in waste management and decommissioning, which is expected to grow significantly in the years ahead. Copyright 2001, U.S. Newswire ***************************************************************** 11 NET President Clapp's Statement on Bush Energy Plan U.S. Newswire 17 May 11:59 Statement Of Philip E. Clapp, President, National Environmental Trust On President Bush's Energy Plan To: National Desk Contact: Brandon MacGillis of National Environmental Trust, 202-887-8833 or 202-422-8328 (cell) WASHINGTON, May 17 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The following is a statement by Philip E. Clapp, president, National Environmental Trust: The President's plan won't produce affordable energy for Americans now, or 10 years from now. What the President's plan will do is drive up air pollution in our cities and turn the last 5 percent of our public lands that we've protected for future generations over to the oil and coal companies. President Bush's message to California is: 'drop dead.' Although constantly talking about California's problems, the President has not proposed one measure to help the state cope with the fallout from electricity deregulation. The President's plan chooses the most expensive energy over the cheapest, time after time. The plan would perpetuate higher energy prices for consumers: Gasoline produced from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would cost 16 percent more than any other domestic source if it were to come to market 10 years from now. Electricity generated from nuclear power is over 40 percent more expensive than power from any other source. Nothing in the President's plan will deliver more energy any time soon: -- Arctic oil wouldn't be available for 10 years, in 2011. -- Oil and natural gas from protected areas in the West wouldn't reach consumers for four to eight years -- 2005 to 2009. -- A new nuclear plant -- or even expansion of an old one -- takes five to 10 years, if it is to be built safely. Unless safety reviews are going to be short-circuited, nuclear power capacity can't come on line until 2006 to 2011. Even without the President's plan, energy prices are projected to drop: -- Natural gas wellhead prices are already projected to drop 70 percent from their January 2001 high by 2004, while residential natural gas prices are projected to drop 30 percent over the same time period and continue to fall through 2010, according to Energy Information Agency (EIA). -- Oil prices are projected to drop 34 percent from their November 2000 high by 2003-2004 (from $30.30 per barrel to $20.08 per barrel). According to EIA the projected price for gasoline in 2010 is $1.29 per gallon. It's now clear why the President walked away from his campaign commitment to cut power plant global warming pollution. The President's energy plan will increase global warming pollution from power plants alone by approximately 65 percent. The President's directive that the Department of Justice "review" New Source Review (NSR) provisions of the Clean Air Act constitutes a sweeping attack on the heart and lungs of the law. The NSR program requires broad emission reductions from every sector of our economy: power plants, refiners, manufacturing, and more. As applied to power plants alone over the next several years NSR will require an additional 9 million tons of sulfur dioxide (SO2) reductions annually and an additional 3 million tons of nitrogen oxides (NOx) reductions annually. If these cuts are not allowed to proceed as a result of the President's 'review,' we can anticipate continued death, disease, and acid rain damage from sulfur emissions and more smog conditions that bring unhealthy air to over 140 million Americans each year. Copyright 2001, U.S. Newswire ***************************************************************** 12 Transcript of Remarks in Press Conference with Gephardt U.S. Newswire 17 May 17:36 Transcript Of Remarks In Press Conference With House Democratic Leader Richard Gephardt To: National Desk Contact: Office of the House Democratic Leader Richard Gephardt, 202-225-0100 WASHINGTON, May 17 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The following is a transcript of remarks in press conference with House Democratic Leader Richard Gephardt: Thursday, May 17, 2001 1:33 p.m. Mr. Gephardt. A couple of issues that are in front of us right now, we are about to vote on a rule on the education bill, and as I said on the floor a few moments ago, it is a real shame that the bipartisanship which really was present in the committee has been lost in the way this bill has been brought to the floor. The leadership of the Republican Party should have listened to some of the Republicans on the committee who told our members in the committee process that they would get a chance on the floor to take up helping with the building and refurbishing of schools and on smaller classroom size amendments. In fact, we had Members who withheld those amendments in the committee because they were assured by the committee leadership that they could do it on the floor. So it is a tragedy that we have not kept the kind of bipartisanship that this committee showed with Mr. Boehner and Mr. Miller and others. And I hope that the rule is defeated and that we can get a rule that allows those amendments to be brought in future consideration. Our members of the committee are very, very angry that they have not been allowed to bring up those amendments. The President's energy plan is out. It is slick. It looks like the annual report of Exxon Mobil, and maybe that is about what it is. It is a deficient plan. It stresses production. It talks about drilling in environmentally sensitive areas, national monuments and national parks. That is not what I think Americans expect in their energy plan to deal with the problems we face. It has no short-term relief. We have got people on the West Coast that are being destroyed, small businesses that are being destroyed, family incomes that are being destroyed by energy prices that have gone up 10 and 20 times. We talked in an earlier meeting with consumers from San Diego. These are folks that have faced 10- and 20-time price increases. As Henry Waxman said yesterday, if a gallon of milk in California had gone up as much as electric prices have gone up, a gallon of milk today in California would cost $190. This is a horrible problem for consumers. They need help now. The Bush energy plan gives no help now. He could direct FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, to put a wholesale price cap on electricity in California now. He won't do it. He says he is ideologically against it; that there is no short-term help for people on the West Coast. He is wrong. This plan should include that kind of relief. Finally, on the things that he does talk about that we agree with, and want to work with him on, such as tax incentives for solar, tax incentives for hybrid automobiles, research monies for alternative fuels, for coal gasification, for clean-burning coal technology, for fuel cells for cars in the future, there is no money in his budget. And we're processing a tax bill, there isn't one tax incentive in this bill for energy. And so my question to the President is: is this slick plan that was put out today anything more than an illusion? If he was really serious about getting started on these things, he would surely include in this tax bill, which apparently is the last tax bill of the year, the energy credits, the energy incentives that he has in his plan. So we can do better than this. The Democratic plan does better than this. And we will work with him and Republican Members in every way that we can in the days ahead to try to get what we can get done in a bipartisan way. I hope that that will be their attitude in the White House as well. Finally, the Speaker sent a letter today responding to Chris Shays' request that campaign finance reform be put on the agenda before the Memorial Day recess. Obviously, that is not going to happen. The letter was truly disappointing to me, and I think to all of us who really want to get campaign reform done at the earliest possible time. First, the letter is unclear. I don't read a definite commitment as to when this will come up. The only reference is to some time after the 4th of July recess. That is not a very definite commitment, and frankly it is too late. The longer this rides on, the less chance we have of getting something done on this issue. And it, along with electoral reform, are two very important issues that we need action on this year, and we are going to press in every way that we can to get these both up as soon as possible and to get something constructive done. Any questions? Q On the campaign reform thing, do you think that the Speaker's letter then triggers discharge petition movement? Do you see that starting to happen? Mr. Gephardt. Well, we are reviewing our options and capabilities here. We are going to talk to a lot of members in our caucus and the other caucus and see what can be done in what period of time to get this up. If you look at the last two Congresses as a guide, it has taken discharge petitions to get this bill up and it may well be that it is going to take a discharge petition this time to get them to actually do it. For the life of me, I don't understand why he couldn't make a specific commitment in this letter to bring this up before the 4th of July, not after the 4th of July. Q Mr. Gephardt, earlier today Mr. Daschle said that the House and Senate Republicans are working on some preconference agreement that will allow them to bypass the conference on the tax bill, agree to the Senate, right to the President. Do you know anything about this? What state of play is there -- Mr. Gephardt. I've heard reports, but, again, I think this tax bill has gone off the tracks. First of all, we have no idea in the House what's going to wind up in it. What we passed apparently here was another PR exercise, just doing the rate cut. There are five other bills they have passed here. I don't know what happened to them. I know they are in a real rush to get this done so they can, you know, tout the fact that they did this before the Memorial Day recess. I wish they would spend more time on what is actually in the bill than touting their achievement. Again, we are worried about who gets the money from this tax cut. We think it is far too focused on the wealthiest and on special interest and not enough on the middle class and people trying to get in the middle class. And as I said a moment ago, we've got a country that is in an energy crisis in terms of gasoline and electricity prices. You would think that they could find a few dollars in the bill to help people with their energy costs. The President said the other day that the tax cut was his answer to the energy problem. Well, it isn't much of an answer if it doesn't really give anything to the people that really have the problem and that is people in the middle class, and if it doesn't contain in it some of the direct tax incentives that he even has in his own plan to help solve the energy problem. Q -- sending out letters to the home districts of some Republicans like Gary Miller, criticizing their views on energy policy. Is there any chance of getting some of these western Republicans to come over to your side on energy? Mr. Gephardt. Some already are. I know that I've heard Duncan Hunter and Duke Cunningham and I am told Representative Gallegly are saying they would vote for the wholesale price cap and trying to get FERC to do that. What I think you are seeing here is when people really listen to their constituents at home -- putting letters aside, when they listen to their constituents they come to the conclusion this is a crisis. I heard Duke Cunningham say he is not ideologically for price caps, but this is a crisis. In his words, this is an emergency. We need to do something. And I think if we could get this to the floor of the House, which I think we can, I think you will see a lot of Republicans come to the conclusion that this is an emergency, this is a crisis; even if you're ideologically not for price caps, that this is a case where we need price caps. Let me just refresh some thoughts here. When I was in San Diego a week or so ago, I heard people tell me that their monthly residential electric bill had gone from $250 a month to $1,250 a month. I heard the fact by the business community that about 65 percent of small businesses in the San Diego area are either bankrupt or going bankrupt right now. And as I said a moment ago, if milk had gone up as much as electricity has gone up in California, a gallon of milk would cost $190. A gallon of milk would cost $190. Can you imagine if we had milk prices at $190 a gallon all over this country that there wouldn't be a heck of a lot of action going on here to deal with the problem? I think there would be. That's the problem that people on the West Coast face. And it's not just California. It's Oregon and Washington, and I believe this problem is going to spread across this country, maybe not as bad as the West Coast, but you are going to have similar problems. Natural gas prices are up. Gasoline prices are going way up. So I think you're going to see bipartisan action before this year is out. I would predict to you you are going to see bipartisan action to deal with what is an emergency and a crisis in many places in this country. Q Mr. Gephardt, you said earlier that you thought the President's plan looks like the annual report from Exxon Mobil. Could you say a little bit more about why you think that? Mr. Gephardt. Well, it's heavily focused on production of new oil and gas. It calls for, as one of its major parts, drilling in environmentally sensitive areas in national monuments, in national parks. It talks about -- it's not specific, but it talks about reviewing the Clean Air and the Clean Water Act. Now, when you put those statements together, those are statements that could well be made by the heads of the major oil companies in this country. These are positions that big oil has had forever. I don't see anything in there about examining the anticompetitive effects of some of these mergers of some of our major oil companies. And I surely don't see any real effort on conservation, on renewables, on other sources of energy, really putting the kind of money for incentives or research that we need in our budget. Again, it is a report that has a lot of pretty pictures. It's on slick paper and it looks like the annual report of a major oil company. And most importantly, the recommendations are largely recommendations that would be accepted by the major oil companies. Now, I'm not saying that the energy and oil companies should not be involved in this issue. They're obviously deeply involved in it. But we need to hear from consumers. We need to hear from the environmental community. We need to hear from small oil companies. We need to hear from small businesses. We need to hear from the generators of solar power and wind power. We have to demonstrate the creative intelligence in this country of being able to solve this problem with plentiful supplies of energy that is cheap and reasonably priced, that does not go back on our gains on the environment. Let me just cite one fact I cited earlier today. In the Los Angeles region today there are four times the number of cars operating than there were 20 years ago -- four times -- and air quality is better today by far in the Los Angeles region than it was 20 years ago. That, folks, is not an accident. That happened because this country has been committed through Clean Air Acts and Clean Water Acts to clean air and water. And I'm not saying it wasn't frustrating and sometimes difficult to achieve. But if we had not had that effort, we would not have achieved what we achieved in Los Angeles and other places around this country. I do not think the American people want to go back on that progress. I do not think they want to stop making continued progress. In fact, I think they're way ahead of us. If you look at the polling data, people want cheap energy, they want plentiful energy, and they want it without compromise on the environment. And that's the kind of energy and environmental policy this country needs. Q Mr. Gephardt, just to follow up, in the Bush plan -- Bush-Cheney plan, what in general do you think will be the reaction in Congress to those parts that need legislative approval? What kind of reception does it face here in Congress and what are the prospects for action in Congress? Mr. Gephardt. Well, I think it will get a good reception if we can get the cooperation of the administration and Republicans in the Congress to actually fund the budget for the research and the other actions that require budgetary action, and if he will open up just a little bit of room in the tax bill to put some of these tax incentives in. We could do that now, we could do that this week. We could do that next week. So what we are seeking is not more statements about what we ought to be doing. What we're seeking is real action. We are all from Missouri now: We want to be shown. We want to do this. So they need to bring these actions forward to carry out their rhetoric. I do not think their suggestion for drilling in national monuments, drilling in national parks, drilling in environmentally sensitive areas like ANWR are going to get bipartisan support in this Congress. That's my thought. Q Why isn't there more discussion about scaling back the Federal tax on gasoline, something that people could benefit from immediately? And would you support that? Mr. Gephardt. Well, that suggestion came up during the Clinton administration about a year ago when we saw a run-up in gasoline prices that lasted part of last year. And as part of that discussion, Bill Clinton went to work on OPEC, something that George Bush could do right now. He talked to our allies in Mexico and other places and asked for greater supply of oil, which eventually Saudi Arabia and others complied with and that helped bring the price down. You will remember Bill Clinton also tapped into the SPRO, the strategic petroleum reserves, and that helped bring the price down. Both of those things incidentally the Bush administration could do right now in order to get relief on gasoline prices. They are apparently not willing to consider. They are not doing either and they are not willing to do either. But at the same time, there was a suggestion to do something about the gasoline tax. The problem with that suggestion, which is understandable, is that we are engaged in long-term contracts with States and contractors across the country to build infrastructure, including mass transit systems, all of which helps you with energy costs and with oil and gasoline costs. If we can stop traffic jams in a particular urban community, wherever it is, that helps with energy costs. If we could build out mass transit as we are trying to do in St. Louis, that helps with energy costs. If you interrupt those long-term commitments, you, in effect, are taking a counterproductive act with regard to your desire to deal with the energy crisis. And so there has been an unwillingness, and I think it is justified, to not go to that short-term fix or help with the problem, as opposed to some of the other things that the Clinton administration did and that I wish this administration would do to give immediate relief. Q So you wouldn't support it, if there was enough support on the other side -- Mr. Gephardt. I thought it was a bad idea a year ago, and I continue to feel it is a bad idea. And, again, if the Bush administration would just do two of the things that the Clinton administration did, we could get some real relief on energy prices. Even if you roll back the last gasoline tax, it isn't going to mean that much per gallon. But if you get OPEC pumping more oil and lowering the price of the basic commodity that gasoline is made of and if you use the SPRO, you can get some immediate, substantial reduction in price of gasoline. (Whereupon, at 1:53 p.m., the press conference was concluded.) Copyright 2001, U.S. Newswire ***************************************************************** 13 UCS: Bush Energy Plan a Recipe for Trouble U.S. Newswire 17 May 14:13 With Few Good Ingredients, Bush's Energy Plan Is Recipe for Trouble, Says Union of Concerned Scientists To: National Desk, Energy Reporter Contact: Paul Fain or Alden Meyer, 202-223-6133, both of the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) Web site: www.ucsusa.org WASHINGTON, May 17 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The following is a statement by Alden Meyer, UCS director of government relations: "With few good ingredients in his energy plan, the president has served up a recipe for trouble. It is a smorgasbord for the coal, oil and nuclear industries and table scraps for efficiency and renewable energy. Meanwhile, the plan does almost nothing for consumers facing high electricity and gas prices. The president's energy plan will do harm to the environment and public health, while abdicating leadership on the clean energy technologies that are key to economic success in the 21st Century. "President Bush is again trying to claim environmental credit for not terminating existing policies, like renewable energy tax credits. With federal leadership, the U.S. could obtain 20 percent of its power from renewables by 2020. But the president's energy plan fails to even restore the outrageous 50 percent cuts he proposed last month for DOE's highly successful wind, solar and geothermal energy programs. The dramatic reductions in renewable electricity costs these programs have achieved must be too threatening to his friends in the coal and nuclear industries. "The tax credits for hybrid vehicles are welcome, but they are by no means a substitute for strengthened fuel efficiency standards. Simply requiring SUVs and other light trucks to be as efficient as today's cars would save drivers $190 billion over the next 15 years, and save more oil than the Arctic Wildlife Refuge could produce in 50 years. "The president calls for new nuclear reactors, but the burden is on the nuclear industry to demonstrate that new designs are in fact safer than current plants, that nuclear regulators start responding to safety problems as they arise, rather than sweeping them under the rug, and that a long-term solution to nuclear waste disposal has been demonstrated. What is not acceptable is additional public subsidies for this technology, including Price-Anderson federal liability protection for new merchant plants. We should give renewable energy a first chance before we give nuclear power a second chance. "When coupled with his decision to abandon negotiations on the Kyoto global warming treaty, the energy plan's emphasis on fossil fuel production over efficiency and clean renewable energy supplies makes it crystal clear that President Bush has decided to do nothing meaningful about global warming. The energy plan was yet another litmus test for Bush on global warming, and he failed again. "The Bush energy plan is bad for the environment, does almost nothing for consumers, jeopardizes our economic competitiveness, and will worsen global warming. The president's energy plan flunks every test but one: boosting energy industry profits. It can, and must, be stopped." The Union of Concerned Scientists is a non-profit partnership of scientists and citizens combining rigorous scientific analysis, innovative policy development and effective citizen advocacy to achieve practical environmental solutions. Copyright 2001, U.S. Newswire ***************************************************************** 14 Taxpayers for Common Sense Statement on Energy Policy U.S. Newswire 17 May 16:28 Energy Report To: National Desk, Energy Reporters Contact: Keith Ashdown of Taxpayers For Common Sense, 202-546-8500 ext. 110 WASHINGTON, May 17 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Following is a statement by Cena Swisher, program director at Taxpayers for Common Sense on the Bush Administration's energy report The recommendations in this report promote many policies that have been advocated in the past and failed. Coal and nuclear power are the clear winners in this plan. The resurgence of both nuclear power research and development and clean coal technology represent a step back in energy policy. The Administration leaves the heavy lifting to Congress. The report does not include some of the most unpopular tax subsidies to the oil and gas industries. The report doesn't need to include tax subsidies to the oil and gas industries as Congress will surely expand upon existing subsidies, and will more than likely authorize new tax breaks for these wealthy industries. This report also brings back programs that have been killed several times by Congress, such as Pyroprocessing technology for spent nuclear fuel. It's a budget of the living dead. The end result will be the combining of the Administration's and Congress' plans, resulting in billions in subsidies for wealthy energy industries. Copyright 2001, U.S. Newswire ***************************************************************** 15 Bush wants expansion of nuclear energy; Nevadans concerned May 17, 2001 RENO, Nev. (AP) - President Bush's energy plan calls for the "safe expansion" of nuclear energy by establishing a national repository for nuclear waste. It does not specify whether the repository should be built at Yucca Mountain but Nevada lawmakers said they are concerned about any effort to increase waste production. "The Bush-Cheney plan promotes nuclear power as a miracle fix to our nation's energy woes, just as it was 30 years ago - and we still don't have a solution for the safe disposal of radioactive waste," Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said. Republican Rep. Jim Gibbons agreed. "Until we solve the nuclear waste issue, it is not a viable alternative in my view," Gibbons said. "The deep geologic burial of waste at Yucca Mountain is not a solution," he said. Bush said in unveiling his ambitious energy program in Minnesota Thursday that nuclear power is a "clean and unlimited source of energy..." "Many Americans may not realize that nuclear power already provides one-fifth of this nation's electricity, safely and without air pollution. But the last American nuclear power plant to enter operation was ordered in 1973," the president said. In contrast, France gets 80 percent of its electricity from nuclear power, he said. "By renewing and expanding existing nuclear facilities, we can generate tens of thousands of megawatts of electricity at a reasonable cost without pumping a gram of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere," Bush said. "New reactor designs are even safer and more economical than the reactors we possess today. And my energy plan directs the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency to use the best science to move expeditiously to find a safe and permanent repository for nuclear waste," he said. Nevada lawmakers were reviewing the 163-page report prepared by a White House energy task force headed by Vice President Dick Cheney. "While nuclear energy may be the cleanest energy producing material for the environment, it leaves the highest toxic waste material known to man in its wake," said Gibbons, who earned a degree in geology. Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said he saw positive signs in the language of Bush's proposals, including funding for recycling and technology to reprocess spent nuclear fuel. "If the Bush administration wants to push nuclear power, I would support them in that effort, if it means they won't be bringing nuclear waste to the state of Nevada," Ensign said. Ensign said it is cheaper and safer to store nuclear waste in "dry casks" at sites where it is produced than to ship it to store in Nevada. "We would be very pleased if they talked about not bringing nuclear waste to Nevada at all," the senator said. Western environmentalists denounced the overall plan as a giveaway to a wide variety of big industries. "The Bush energy plan is an all-you-can-eat buffet for big oil, gas, mining, nuclear and timber," said Brian Vincent, an organizer of the American Lands Alliance in Nevada City, Calif. "Industry executives are salivating over this plan more than a Texan at a rib roast," he said. The conservationists are especially critical of Bush's plans to increase energy exploration on public lands. "Make no mistake, drilling in wilderness areas means forever sacrificing these places to development," said Keith Hammond of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. Bush's strategy calls on the federal government to provide for the safe disposal of nuclear waste. It notes that nuclear waste currently is being stored at local plant sites. "The DOE is over a decade behind schedule for accepting nuclear waste from utilities, but has made progress toward characterization of the Yucca Mountain, Nevada site," the report said. "Construction of an exploratory studies facility has been completed, a viability assessment was published, and recently scientists placed their extensive research about Yucca Mountain on the record for public scrutiny. However, key regulatory standards to protect public health and the environment at the repository have not been issued." Cheney said in an interview with The Associated Press earlier this week that while no site was favored, the Nevada site was the "farthest along and most advanced... "It's been drawn out for a long time and if we want to promote the use of nuclear energy then clearly we've got to address the waste question and get it resolved." All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 16 FTCR: Bush Energy Plan Will Make CA Crisis Worse U.S. Newswire 17 May 16:21 FTCR: Bush Energy Plan Will Make California Crisis Worse; Taxpayer Boondoggles, More Deregulation Equals Higher Prices, Taxes To: National and State Desks Contact: Doug Heller of the Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights, 310-392-0522, ext. 309 LOS ANGELES, May 17 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The Bush-Cheney energy plan will make things worse for beleaguered Californians, who are facing an economic and public health catastrophe this summer as a result of deregulation, a California-based citizen group said today. "California's facing a catastrophe because a handful of energy companies have seized control of our electricity supply under deregulation, and have been manipulating the supply of electricity to create artificial shortages and maximize their profits," said Harvey Rosenfield, president of the non-profit Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights. "The federal government could stop this assault and order rate reductions and refunds of overcharges. Instead, the Bush-Cheney plan calls for more deregulation, massive tax breaks for energy companies and the construction of multi-billion dollar boondoggles like nuclear power, all of which will benefit the same energy companies that are holding California hostage." With Bush-Cheney Plan, Crisis History Repeats Itself FTCR noted that the last energy "crisis" to strike America was inspired not by supply shortages but by greed -- of the OPEC nations, which in the 1970s used their control of petroleum supplies to create shortages and massive price hikes. American energy companies took advantage to profit from their resources as well. In response, the U.S. Congress passed a then-staggering multi-billion dollar billion package of tax breaks and grants to the energy industry to build power plants that would manufacture "synthetic fuels." These plants ultimately became taxpayer-funded boondoggles, while nuclear power, hailed by the energy industry as a source of clean energy, turned out to be prohibitively expensive and a public health threat. Ironically, California's 1996 deregulation law required ratepayers to pay off over $20 billion of the California utility companies' bad debts, most of which were incurred by the utilities as cost-overruns in construction of nuclear power plants in the 1970s. "California's economy, health and safety, and the quality of life in the Golden State are threatened by the skyrocketing energy prices inspired by deregulation. The Bush-Cheney plan not only does nothing to protect us against the energy cartel, it calls for more deregulation, higher taxes and prices," said Rosenfield. "In the last energy crisis, a handful of nations in the Middle East created a cartel to exploit their control over energy supplies; two decades later, a handful of energy companies from the Southern United States have created a cartel to exploit their control over our electricity supply," said Rosenfield. "The only solution to the current crisis is to break the cartel: to bust the Texas-based OPEC." Copyright 2001, U.S. Newswire ***************************************************************** 17 American Chemistry Council Statement on Bush Energy Plan U.S. Newswire 17 May 13:45 Statement by American Chemistry Council President On Bush Energy Policy To: National Desk, Energy Reporters Contact: Tom Gilroy, 703-741-5804 or Jeff Van, 703-741-5802 both of the American Chemistry Council ARLINGTON, Va., May 17 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The following is a statement by Fred Webber, president and CEO of the American Chemistry Council: The American Chemistry Council compliments President Bush and Vice President Cheney for recognizing the vital importance of a national energy policy and for developing a plan in record time. While we haven't been able to examine the details in the eight-chapter report yet, we are happy to see that it proposes a sensible mix of new production, distribution enhancements and conservation. We're pleased that President Bush's plan recognizes the importance of developing more "cogeneration" plants. Cogeneration means energy is used twice. This technology is used widely in the business of chemistry. It produces energy far more efficiently than conventional power plant technology. But we are troubled by a recommendation in the report that could lead to the premature repeal of the Public Utility Regulatory Policy Act, which promotes cogeneration. Repeal of this law would work against the president's cogeneration proposal. If anyone has any doubts about why the nation needs a comprehensive, long-term energy plan, they need look no further than the business of chemistry, which is a $462-billion-a-year enterprise in the U.S. The energy crisis has already had a significant impact on the business of chemistry and on thousands of men and women who work in it. Because of rising energy costs-and the shortage of some energy supplies, especially natural gas-thousands of workers in our industry are out of work. More layoffs are expected. The business of chemistry is the nation's largest user of natural gas, consuming 7 percent of total U.S. supplies. Because of high costs and shortages of natural gas, our industry, which is the nation's largest exporter, has seen its trade surplus go into a freefall, from $20 billion in 1997 to $6.3 billion in 2000. In January of this year, there was actually a trade deficit in chemicals, only the second such monthly deficit in 70 years. By the end of the year, the industry's trade surplus is expected to shrink further. In this crisis, our industry provides an early warning for the rest of the economy. What has happened to the business of chemistry is beginning to happen to other industries and businesses. ACC believes it is time for Democrats and Republicans, businesses, labor unions, environmental organizations and others to work together to solve the present crisis and to keep it from worsening. The business of chemistry, which has averaged annual energy efficiency gains of over three percent over the last 10 years, is committed to playing a constructive role in developing a long-term strategy and action plan. We urge others to do the same. The American Chemistry Council represents the leading companies engaged in the business of chemistry. Council members apply the science of chemistry to make innovative products and services that make people's lives better, healthier and safer. The Council is committed to improved environmental, health and safety performance through Responsible Care common sense advocacy designed to address major public policy issues, and health and environmental research and product testing. The business of chemistry is a $462 billion enterprise and a key element of the nation's economy. It is the nation's largest exporter, accounting for ten cents out of every dollar in U.S. exports. Chemistry companies invest more in research and development than any other business sector. Copyright 2001, U.S. Newswire ***************************************************************** 18 PSR Statement on Bush Energy Plan U.S. Newswire 17 May 13:38 Statement of Physicians for Social Responsibility Environment and Health Program Director Susan T. West To: National Desk Contact: Tarek Rizk of Physicians for Social Responsibility, 202-667-4260, ext. 215 WASHINGTON, May 17, /U.S. Newswire/ -- The following is a statement by Physicians for Social Responsibility Environment and Health Program Director Susan T. West, MPH: In the energy plan released this week, the Bush Administration has failed in its duty to protect the American people. The plan represents a significant threat to the nation's public health. For example, power plant pollution shortens the lives and threatens the health of thousands of Americans. Instead of dealing with this health crisis, the Bush energy plan would increase the number of plants at an astronomical rate. The plan endorses a myriad of policies and practices that increase health risks. The Bush energy plan not only ignores the need to restrict carbon dioxide emissions, it takes steps which will essentially increase those emissions over the next two decades. The plan supports the construction of 1,300 to 1,900 new power plants over that period. That comes out to nearly one power plant a week until 2021. These plants are our greatest emission-related health threat. They contribute to ground-level ozone, smog, acid rain, climate change, deadly particulate matter and birth defect-causing mercury. America's fossil fuel habit pumps out 25 percent of the world's carbon dioxide emissions. These emissions are the main culprit behind our changing climate, which can lead to increases in extreme weather events, heat waves and vector-borne diseases like the deadly West Nile Virus. A smart energy policy would address this growing US and world health problem; the Bush energy policy is silent on restricting CO2 emissions. The Bush energy plan puts a great deal of faith into unreliable and dangerous strategies. One such strategy is nuclear power. While nuclear plants don't emit traditional air pollutants, they do raise the level of other, much more catastrophic health threats. An accident at a nuclear plant could injure or kill thousands of people. The Bush plan encourages increased reliance on nuclear power and allows for the development of new technologies, including the use of weapons-grade plutonium for nuclear reactors. Another questionable practice endorsed in the Bush plan is the use of so-called 'clean coal' technology. The reality is that this 'clean coal' still emits seven times the pollution of a natural gas plant working under similar conditions. Burning clean coal still releases dangerous toxins which endanger the health of all populations exposed. The Bush energy plan also calls for tax incentives to encourage biomass energy production which could lead to increases in municipal waste incineration, thereby significantly adding harmful dioxin into our communities. The Bush energy plan does not demonstrate any concern about public health or our existing legislation to protect the American people. The Bush plan would review regulatory action against polluting utilities undermining the Clean Air Act. Our nation has better options: efficiency, alternative sources and conservation is the best medicine for our energy needs. A decreased reliance on fossil fuels and a timely transition to sustainable energy sources, in concert with more comprehensive efficiency plans, will lead to improved overall public health. The plan protects only the health of the oil, coal, and electricity industries, while leaving our nation dangerously exposed to health hazards. The health of America depends on a progressive and sustainable approach. Copyright 2001, U.S. Newswire ***************************************************************** 19 Nat. Mining Association Statement on Bush Energy Plan U.S. Newswire 17 May 12:43 National Energy Strategy To: National Desk, Energy Reporter Contact: John Grasser, 202-463-2651 or 301-951-9578 (evening) Karen Batra, 202-463-2651 or 202-588-7276 (evening) both of the National Mining Association WASHINGTON, May 17 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Following is a statement on the Bush administration's national energy strategy by Jack Gerard, National Mining Association President and CEO: "For too long America has been asleep at the wheel on the highway to the energy future. We have not checked to see how empty our tank really is. "It took the California energy situation to send a wake-up call and make us realize the tank is almost empty -- whether it's electricity, gasoline, or home heating oil -- and unless something is done to fill it the rest of the country will soon experience what we've witnessed in California. "The Bush administration has heeded this warning and responded with what appears to be an energy plan based on technological solutions embracing conservation, energy efficiencies, and utilizing all domestic energy sources. "This is good news for America and energy consumers and is the first time in America's history we've had anything closely resembling a comprehensive strategy aimed at securing our economic and energy future. "We must recognize that our nation is and will remain dependent on oil, natural gas, nuclear energy, and especially coal for many years to come. In order for us to efficiently use the 275-year reserve of coal we have in this country, it is absolutely critical that an energy strategy allows for the continued development and utilization of the highly efficient clean coal technologies. "It is now up to the Congress to put the realities of the energy situation above politics and work closely with the White House to expeditiously move forward measures embracing a comprehensive national energy strategy. And they must insure it meets not only our energy needs, but our environmental goals as well. America's future depends on it." NMA President and CEO Jack Gerard is available for interviews/comments on the Bush Administration's National Energy Strategy. Copyright 2001, U.S. Newswire ***************************************************************** 20 LCV: Bush Energy Plan Bad for Enviroment, Economy U.S. Newswire 16 May 11:51 To: National Desk Contact: Scott Stoermer, 202-785-8683 ext. 599 or Shalini Matani, 202-785-8683 ext. 587, both of the League of Conservation Voters WASHINGTON, May 17 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The League of Conservation Voters (LCV) today rejected the Bush administration's plan to address America's energy problems because it focuses on dirty, unreliable and inefficient fossil fuels and other energy sources that threaten the health of our environment and the strength of our economy. LCV believes Bush's proposal will ensure high public health costs and energy demand well into the future, protecting the corporate bottom line of his big oil and coal allies at the expense of the public's interest in clean air, safe water, open spaces, and low electricity and gas prices. "Bush's dirty, unbalanced, irresponsible energy policy has placed the special oil and coal interests that funded his campaign over the public's interest in a clean, reliable, safe, and affordable energy supply," said Deb Callahan, LCV president. "American voters want a balanced, responsible, comprehensive plan for solving our energy problems that looks toward our future and makes environmental and economic sense. What they got from President Bush was a plan that increases America's reliance on the inefficient, destructive fossil fuels of the past that pollute our air and water. The Bush plan ignores modern, sustainable energy efficiency technologies and renewable energy alternatives that keep down costs for consumers and businesses, protecting our environment and our economy at the same time." The White House energy plan calls for the construction of hundreds of new power plants over the next 20 years, increasing coal production and use, a long-term shift to nuclear energy, and more domestic oil and gas drilling in America's most precious wilderness areas, such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Rocky Mountains. The plan fails to give meaningful attention to clean, innovative, available energy efficiency technologies and conservation measures that would address the nation's short-term energy issues, at the same time reducing long-term demand on the nation's finite supply of fossil fuels. "The Bush energy plan not only looks back to industrial age fuels, it is a product of industrial age politics, when corporations made backroom deals behind closed doors," Callahan added. "In this case, President Bush traded the public's interest in a clean, safe environment for the special interests of his oil and coal campaign contributors who want to the public dependent on their dirty sources of power, making them the only people who will be better off under this energy plan." The League of Conservation Voters is the political voice for the national environmental community. From cabinet appointments to environmental policy decisions, LCV is committed to holding the administration accountable for its environmental actions. Information on LCV's efforts pertaining to the administration's national energy proposal is available over the Internet at www.lcv.org. Copyright 2001, U.S. Newswire ***************************************************************** 21 ASE: Bush Energy Plan Out of Touch with What Americans Need U.S. Newswire 17 May 10:28 Bush Energy Plan Out of Touch with What Americans Need, Says Alliance to Save Energy To: National Desk, Energy Reporter Contact: Tourang Nazari, 202-530-2203 or tnazari@ase.org; David M. Nemtzow, 202-487-SAVE (cell); Rozanne Weissman, 202-530-2217 or rweissman@ase.org all of the Alliance to Save Energy WASHINGTON, May 17 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Following is a statement by David M. Nemtzow, president, Alliance to Save Energy: "The Bush Administration's energy plan is out of touch with what the American people need. Everyone knows we must use energy more efficiently to cut energy bills and protect our environment. This plan is imbalanced -- it provides lip service to energy efficiency and saves all its heavy lifting for increasing energy supplies. Their primary response is dig more, mine more, and build more. They should also say, 'waste less.' "An energy policy that only hints at energy efficiency and overemphasizes supply will not answer our nation's energy problems. The Administration has painted energy conservation as an image of the past, but today's existing energy efficiency technologies allow for immediate and dramatic energy savings. Energy efficiency is the quickest, cheapest, cleanest way to extend our nation's energy supplies. "A national energy plan must balance energy efficiency with new supplies. The Bush Administration has missed a major opportunity in its long-term plan to recommend energy-efficient measures that could help provide affordable energy, a strong economy, and a clean environment: -- Provide tax incentives for energy-efficient homes, appliances, commercial buildings, and other building equipment. -- Restore the energy efficiency research and development budget that has been cut by 30 percent, while maintaining the increase for low-income weatherization. -- Increase the fuel economy for cars and light trucks by committing to an increase in fuel economy not just studying it again. That would save 1.5 million barrels of petroleum per day by 2010 and 4.8 million barrels by 2020. -- Increase the reliability of the electric grid and buttress against shortages, enact a national system benefit trust fund for the electric sector to give utilities a strong incentive to expand their energy efficiency programs and other public benefits activities. -- Drop the effort to roll back the efficiency standards for air conditioners and continue to set strong efficiency standards for appliances and other products. By maintaining a Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio (SEER) of 13 for air conditioners, American consumers would save more than $700 million in annual electricity bills." The Alliance to Save Energy is a coalition of prominent business, government, environmental, and consumer leaders who promote the efficient use of energy worldwide to benefit consumers, the environment, economy, and national security. Copyright 2001, U.S. Newswire ***************************************************************** 22 Coalition for Affordable and Reliable Energy Statement U.S. Newswire 17 May 10:28 Coalition for Affordable and Reliable Energy: Bush Proposals Will Help U.S. Meet Growing Demand for Energy To: National Desk, Energy Reporter Contact: Paul C. Oakley, 202-639-2805 or Todd Irons, 202-973-2927, both for the Coalition for Affordable and Reliable Energy WASHINGTON, May 17 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Following is a statement by Paul C. Oakley, executive director, The Coalition for Affordable and Reliable Energy: President Bush's energy proposal significantly advances the likelihood of developing a comprehensive national energy strategy that promotes conservation, improves efficiency, and enables the country to meet increasing demand through use of diverse domestic resources such as coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear power, and renewable and alternative fuels. The Administration's plan reflects the reality that it will be impossible to achieve energy security, ensure economic vitality, and protect our quality of life without more fully relying on our domestic energy resources, especially coal, for a major part of America's energy needs. The United States not taking advantage of its abundance of coal would be like Saudi Arabia turning its back on oil. CARE believes the Administration understands that coal must be an essential part of the long-term solution to the nation's energy problems. The importance of coal is evident by these simple facts: -- The United States currently depends on coal for more than half of its electricity. -- The country has a known coal supply that could last more than 250 years. -- Technological developments have made coal an increasingly clean source of energy. Maximizing the use of domestic energy resources must be coupled with development of more advanced energy technologies. CARE is pleased that the Administration is promoting clean coal technology. Coal-fired plants are already increasingly clean, as the rate of major emissions has declined by 50 percent since 1970 even as the use of coal has tripled. These technological improvements will enable us to use coal even more efficiently, while reducing any associated environmental impacts. We look forward to working with Congress and the Administration to develop a comprehensive national energy strategy that establishes a sensible balance among the nation's social, economic, national security, environmental and energy goals. CARE believes President Bush's plan contains many of the key components of such a strategy. The Coalition for Affordable and Reliable Energy (CARE) is a broad-based coalition that has nearly 50 members representing numerous business, labor and consumer groups from across the country. More information about CARE and the need for a comprehensive and balanced energy policy can be found at http://www.careenergy.com. Copyright 2001, U.S. Newswire ***************************************************************** 23 ATI Participates in Formation of International Nuclear Waste Management Group [Business Wire] Story Filed: Friday, May 18, 2001 1:05 PM EST BERLIN, May 18, 2001 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- ATI has recently executed an agreement with the Nuclear Research facility -- Forschungszentrum Juelich Institute fuer Sicherheitsforschung and Reaktortechnik of the Federal Republic of Germany and the Institute of Physics and Engineering of Krasnoyarsk State University (NIFTI) in the Russian Federation to establish a scientific research laboratory for nuclear waste management in the "closed city" of Zhelesnogorsk, Russian Federation. The main facility is intended to be located in a previously established nuclear laboratory used for nuclear weapons research and development, while utilizing, simultaneously, the other facilities of laboratories and facilities of the "closed cities" in central Siberia and coordinated and supported by the research laboratory of Forschungszentrum Juelich in Germany. The laboratory will be known as the INTERNATIONAL LABORATORY FOR NUCLEAR WASTE MANAGEMENT. The purpose of the laboratory will be to provide research, development, testing and certification for nuclear waste remediation applications. The parties will attempt to obtain funding for the laboratory from various agencies of the German and United States governments and the European Union. Agencies that are currently providing aid programs to the Krasnoyarsk Krai and Zhelesnogorsk in Central Siberia include, the US Department of Energy/Nuclear Cities Initiative Office, the Ministry of Atomic Energy of the Russian Federation (MINATOM) -- which includes sub-agencies and specialized production and research facilities of MINATOM, the Federal Republic of Germany-Bundesministerium of Science and Education-Nuclear Safety, and the Finance Committee of the Bundestag of the Federal Republic of Germany for Russian nuclear proliferation and environmental issues. ATI is currently engaged in discussions with all of these agencies to provide financial and scientific support for the Laboratory. ATI's goal is to have the Laboratory become an integral part of the International Centre for Advanced Technologies (ICAT) which ATI and NIFTI are presently in the planning and implementation stages to develop in Zhelesnogorsk. The business plan of ICAT includes the renovation and conversion of former nuclear weapons facilities and the personnel involved in former armament industries in the "closed cities" to the research, development and engineering applications for nuclear waste management. The research and development operations will be focused on: -- Physical and chemical methods of surface decontamination; -- Geological substance processes modeling during the nuclear waste disposal cycle; -- Development and analysis of various mediums for radioactive waste storage; -- Development of hardware-software-firmware for deposition site monitoring To date, the activities of the Laboratory have focused on the evaluation; testing, applications development and product certifications of various nuclear remediation technologies licensed to ATI. Initial operations are primarily focused on the proprietary Nurescell(TM) technology. Nurescell(TM) is a series of formulated materials consisting of radiation blockers and additives. The material may be formulated for application specific shielding, storage and radiation containment and radioactive materials and environments. Its shielding properties are similar to iron. It has the advantage of being easily cast, formed and machined. Extensive testing has been conducted since the fall of 2000 in facilities of the closed cities of Siberia, as well as research laboratories in Germany, and the results indicate that the material is radiation damage resistant and has desirable mechanical properties. These testing regimes have indicated potential use in the nuclear power industry, for medical shielding applications and for waste encapsulation. Eight specific applications for the material have been identified and are now being subjected to futher engineering and certification testing. These applications are all intended to be used in various environments in the Russian Federation and, potentially, in other appropriate markets. Advanced Technology Industries (OTCBB:AVDI) is a technology enabling holding company that transforms old world markets into new world networks by amassing, enhancing, and distributing intellectual capital from incubation to global alliances. ATI intends to participate in various programs established by agencies of the United States, Russian Federation, Federal Republic of Germany, the State of Israel and other multilateral agencies, such as the European Union and the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development, to promote the transfer of new technology from the military industrial industries and research institutes of the former Soviet Union, including the "closed nuclear cities" of the Russian Federation, to the private sector and industry. Certain information and statements included in this news release constitute "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the Federal Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Such forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors, which may cause the actual results, performance, or achievement of the company to be materially different from any future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied in such forward-looking statements. CONTACT: Advanced Technology Industries James Samuelson, 011 49 30 201 7780 ***************************************************************** 24 NUCLEAR REGULATORY COMMISSION 10 CFR Part 72 List of Approved Spent Fuel Storage Casks: VSC-24 Revision; Confirmation of Effective Date [FedNet Government News] Story Filed: Thursday, May 17, 2001 4:18 PM EST Washington, DC, May 17, 2001 (FedNet via COMTEX) -- The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is confirming the effective date of May 21, 2001, for the direct final rule that appeared in the Federal Register of March 6, 2001 (66 FR 13407). This direct final rule amended the NRC's regulations by revising the Pacific Sierra Nuclear Associates (PSNA) VSC-24 listing within the "List of approved spent fuel storage casks" to include Amendment No. 3 to the Certificate of Compliance (CoC). DATES: The effective date of May 21, 2001 is confirmed for this direct final rule. AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission. ACTION: Direct final rule; confirmation of effective date. Copyright 2001 FedNet *Copyright © 2001, FedNet Government News, all rights reserved.* ***************************************************************** 25 Activists Dump On Bush's Energy Scam Press Release by Greenpeace at 12:26pm, 18th May 2001 Greenpeace activists dumped five tons of coal and five oil and nuclear waste drums outside the Vice President Cheney's residence at the Naval Observatory in Washington today to protest the Bush/Cheney Energy Plan. Activists held a banner reading "Stop the Bush/Cheney Energy Scam: America Needs Clean Power Now." The drums were labelled with the logos of Exxon/Mobil, Chevron, Texaco, BP and Enron. "Bush and Cheney have released less of a plan and more of a scam because it enriches the oil, coal and nuclear industries, fails to solve the energy problems and ignores the spectre of dangerous climate change," said Andrea Durbin, Greenpeace USA Campaigns Director. Since taking office, Bush has backed off a campaign promise to control carbon emissions and has withdrawn U.S. support of the Kyoto Protocol, the international climate change treaty. "New Zealand government has made strong statements against the USA abandoning the Kyoto Protocol", said Sue Connor, Greenpeace New Zealand climate campaigner. "However, the New Zealand government continues to belong to JUSCANZ , an international political coalition with the USA in regard to Kyoto Protocol negotiations". "Bush's energy "scam" clearly shows that the US Government and the US corporate fossil fuel industry don't give a damn about preventing dangerous climate change", said Connor. "New Zealand must now work with the European Union to ensure that the Kyoto Protocol is supported globally", said Connor. "New Zealand must also restate its commitment to ratifying the Kyoto Protocol by mid 2002, and support the rapid growth of renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar in New Zealand". wapnews.co.nz ***************************************************************** 26 Nevadans concerned about Bush's push to expand nuclear energy May 17, 2001 RENO, Nev. (AP) - Nevada lawmakers critical of President Bush's energy plan fear his push to expand nuclear energy would create more pressure to build a high-level radioactive waste dump at Yucca Mountain. Conservationists across the West also criticized the overall strategy Thursday as promoting heavily-polluting industries and energy exploration on public lands at the expense of the environment. Bush's new energy plan calls for the "safe expansion" of nuclear energy by establishing a national repository for nuclear waste. It does not specify whether the repository should be built at Yucca Mountain. "The Bush-Cheney plan promotes nuclear power as a miracle fix to our nation's energy woes, just as it was 30 years ago - and we still don't have a solution for the safe disposal of radioactive waste," Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said. Republican Rep. Jim Gibbons agreed. "Until we solve the nuclear waste issue, it is not a viable alternative in my view," Gibbons said. "The deep geologic burial of waste at Yucca Mountain is not a solution," he said. Bush said in unveiling the strategy in Minnesota Thursday that nuclear power is a "clean and unlimited source of energy..." "Many Americans may not realize that nuclear power already provides one-fifth of this nation's electricity, safely and without air pollution. But the last American nuclear power plant to enter operation was ordered in 1973," the president said. In contrast, France gets 80 percent of its electricity from nuclear power, Bush said. "By renewing and expanding existing nuclear facilities, we can generate tens of thousands of megawatts of electricity at a reasonable cost without pumping a gram of greenhouse gas into the atmosphere," he said. "New reactor designs are even safer and more economical than the reactors we possess today. And my energy plan directs the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency to use the best science to move expeditiously to find a safe and permanent repository for nuclear waste," he said. Nevada lawmakers were reviewing details of the 163-page report prepared by a White House energy task force headed by Vice President Dick Cheney. "While nuclear energy may be the cleanest energy producing material for the environment, it leaves the highest toxic waste material known to man in its wake," said Gibbons, who earned a degree in geology. Nevada Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa, a Democrat, said Bush's plan fails to address "serious flaws associated not only with the Yucca Mountain project but in the transportation of deadly nuclear waste across the country." Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said he saw positive signs in Bush's proposals, including funding for recycling and technology to reprocess spent nuclear fuel. "If the Bush administration wants to push nuclear power, I would support them in that effort, if it means they won't be bringing nuclear waste to the state of Nevada," Ensign said. "But I will strongly oppose additional nuclear power plants as part of the Bush administration's energy package if there is a push for storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain," he said. Ensign said it is cheaper and safer to store nuclear waste in dry casks at sites where it is produced than to ship it to store in Nevada. In terms of direct references to Yucca Mountain, Reid said the language in Bush's plan "is much softer than I thought it would be. "It's not perfect by far, but it doesn't call for interim storage. It doesn't call for changing EPA standards. It even gives some hope in looking at other technologies," said Reid, ranking Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. Conservationists denounced the overall plan as a giveaway to a wide variety of big industries. "The Bush energy plan is an all-you-can-eat buffet for big oil, gas, mining, nuclear and timber," said Brian Vincent, an organizer of the American Lands Alliance in Nevada City, Calif. "Industry executives are salivating over this plan more than a Texan at a rib roast," he said. Dan Geary, a spokesman for the National Environmental Trust in Nevada, said the plan was "cooked up in secret and marinated in money for oil, coal and nuclear power interests. "The president's plan is bad news for Nevada consumers and big trouble for Nevada's pollution problem," he said from Las Vegas. Environmentalists are especially critical of Bush's plans to increase energy exploration on public lands. "Make no mistake, drilling in wilderness areas means forever sacrificing these places to development," said Keith Hammond of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. Bush's strategy calls on the federal government to provide for the safe disposal of nuclear waste. It notes that nuclear waste currently is being stored at local plant sites. "The DOE is over a decade behind schedule for accepting nuclear waste from utilities, but has made progress toward characterization of the Yucca Mountain, Nevada site," the report said. "Construction of an exploratory studies facility has been completed, a viability assessment was published, and recently scientists placed their extensive research about Yucca Mountain on the record for public scrutiny. However, key regulatory standards to protect public health and the environment at the repository have not been issued." Cheney said in an interview with The Associated Press earlier this week that while no site was favored, the Nevada site was the "farthest along and most advanced... "It's been drawn out for a long time and if we want to promote the use of nuclear energy then clearly we've got to address the waste question and get it resolved." All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 27 Pluthermal fuel use to face village referendum Daily Yomiuri On-Line Yomiuri Shimbun The Kariwamura village government in Niigata Prefecture announced on Thursday it would hold a local referendum on May 27 over the introduction of pluthermal power at a local nuclear power plant. The generation of pluthermal power involves mixing uranium with plutonium chemically extracted from spent nuclear fuel to form mixed oxide (MOX) fuel, which may then be used in light water reactors. MOX fuel has not yet been used in Japanese nuclear power plants. The referendum will be the first on a plan to use pluthermal power at a local nuclear power plant. As of Thursday, the electorate was home to 4,092 registered voters. The referendum has no legally binding power. However, with public opinion turning against further development of nuclear power following the recent spate of nuclear accidents, the referendum's results may influence the fate of pluthermal power. The government considers its plan to use MOX fuel at the No. 3 reactor at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant central to its current nuclear fuel reprocessing project. The plant grounds extend from the village to the adjacent city of Kashiwazaki in the prefecture. The village referendum will be the nation's 11th to be held according to local ordinances. It is also the second one concerning nuclear power facilities, following a August 1996 referendum in Makimachi, also in Niigata Prefecture, over the construction of a new nuclear power plant in the town. Kariwamura villagers opposed to the plan specifically requested the referendum. Voters will be able to choose between supporting or opposing MOX use, or they may abstain. The government and TEPCO made the current pluthermal power plan the centerpiece of their nuclear fuel reprocessing project, after a 1995 nuclear accident brought their "Monju" (fast-breeder reactor) plan to a halt. Copyright The Yomiuri Shimbun ***************************************************************** 28 Japan nuclear policy makers welcome Bush proposal *Updated 3:03 AM ET May 18, 2001* TOKYO, May 18 (Reuters) - Japanese government and industry officials, long struggling to promote nuclear energy in the face of public distrust, welcomed on Friday long-term energy proposals unveiled this week by the U.S. Bush administration. The energy package announced by President George W. Bush on Thursday called for expanding U.S. nuclear power production among other steps aimed at boosting the country's energy supplies, sparking protests by environmentalists. Bush seeks to ease restrictions on relicensing nuclear power stations and encourage investment in coal technologies. The proposals also call for tax credits to fund energy conservation and alternative fuels. "This decision is good news for Japan's energy policy," a Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry official said. The Federation of Electric Power Companies, a government-backed industry body comprising 10 key power utilities, echoed the sentiment. "We are greatly encouraged by the fact that a nation that plays a key role in the direction world energy policy takes has shifted to backing nuclear power," a federation spokesman said. Japan operates 51 commercial nuclear reactors, which together supply about a third of the nation's electric power. The industry. however, has come under criticism for a series of accidents, most notably the nation's worst in September 1999. Proponents of nuclear energy, however, were quick to say they did not expect U.S. policy to directly influence Japanese policymaking by encouraging construction of new plants or leading to a drop in local opposition towards the industry. The government and power industry say more reactors should be built to secure a stable power supply in a country that has virtually no energy resources of its own. Japan imports almost all its crude oil, 80 percent or more of which comes from the Middle East. Advocates say the construction of new nuclear plants is essential if Tokyo is to fulfil a pledge made under the Kyoto pact in 1997 to cut emissions of six greenhouse gases by six percent by the 2008-2012 period from 1990 levels. "We will continue to have to work to win the understanding of local residents for nuclear power," the power industry spokesman said. The memory of Japan's worst nuclear accident in 1999, which killed two plant workers, is still raw in many peoples' minds. Hundreds of workers, nearby residents and emergency personnel were exposed to radiation when an uncontroled nuclear chain reaction was triggered at a uranium processing plant in Tokaimura, northeast of Tokyo. © 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication and ***************************************************************** 29 LDP sees nuclear as a core source of power [The Japan Times Online] Nuclear power is regarded virtually as a core energy source in a bill for Japan's basic law on energy being prepared by Liberal Democratic Party lawmakers, according to the full text obtained by Kyodo News. Although the bill stops short of stipulating nuclear power and other specific sources of energy, it clearly promotes a shift in sources to nonfossil fuels, stressing the need for the country to secure a stable supply. To draw up the bill, the LDP compiled an outline explicitly stating nuclear power as one of the core sources of energy. The lawmakers plan to submit the bill for passage during an extraordinary Diet session in the fall. The draft -- tentatively titled The Basic Law on Stable Supply -- deals with such major energy sources as nuclear power and natural gas, LDP sources told Kyodo News. The 14-article bill stipulates three basic energy policies: a breakaway from heavy dependence on oil supply from a few oil producing countries; diversification of energy sources; and improvement of energy self-sufficiency. Pointing to the central role energy plays in the steady improvement of the quality of life and the maintenance and development of the economy, the bill requires power companies to strive to secure stable supplies and the government to compile every five years a basic plan. The planned legislation reflects worries, spurred by California's energy crisis earlier this year and recent moves by foreign companies to penetrate Japan's energy market, that a rapid liberalization of the market would undermine stable supplies, the sources said. The Japan Times: May 19, 2001 ***************************************************************** 30 Greens: Scrap nuclear energy BBC NEWS | VOTE2001 | Friday, 18 May, 2001, 12:27 GMT The Green Party unveil their manifesto in London The Green Party in England and Wales unveiled its election proposals on Friday with an emphasis on the environment and social justice. At the heart of the Greens' manifesto is a pledge to raise income tax for higher earners and to make a huge investment in non-nuclear renewable fuels. The Green Party offers a complete reform of taxation and benefits for wealth redistribution The party, which has yet to win seats in the Westminster parliament, also advocates the renationalisation of the railways and an increase in tax on fuel. The Greens plan to scrap car tax, nuclear power and ban factory farming. Dr Mike Woodin, a principal speaker for the party, and author of the manifesto entitled Reach for the Future, said the Greens were promising a "just" economic future. "The Green Party offers a complete reform of taxation and benefits for wealth redistribution, backed by comprehensive policies for sustainable job-creation and economic self-reliance," he said. Electoral progress The Greens have made progress in recent years, securing council, Greater London Authority (GLA) and European parliamentary seats. Darren Johnson, leader of the Green group on the GLA, outlined his party's stance on globalisation offering "ecological and social justice rather than business at any price, and localisation rather than globalisation". Mike Woodin wrote the manifesto Other pledges include the scrapping of university tuition fees and ending prescription, eye test and dental charges as part of a health service shake up. The Greens' hope to consolidate support in their urban areas such as Oxford, Stroud, Kirklees, Lancaster, Manchester and Brighton. Fighting for seats They are fighting 140 seats in England and Wales and four in Scotland. Mr Woodin said winning 5% of the vote in seats and saving deposits would be a "benchmark of success". But a good campaign in the Westminster elections could yield a greater share of the vote at local and European elections. Ultimately that could provide the necessary momentum towards establishing a presence at Westminster, Mr Woodin suggested. He acknowledged that policies such as the party's renationlisation proposals for Railtrack, were "unattractive to people on the right" who might otherwise be drawn to the Greens because of their pledge to promote organic farming and ban GM food. But he insisted: "You cannot sustain an ecologically just society without a socially just society because you need everyone to feel they are part of that society. "We believe we can lead people to this agenda in ways that might take them by surprise." ***************************************************************** 31 British linked to US nuclear plans ISSUE 2184 Friday 18 May 2001 By Ben Fenton in Washington Darker future, warns Bush in push for power IF George W Bush is successful in encouraging the building of nuclear power stations in America, the chances are that they will be built, albeit indirectly, by the British Government. The Department of Trade and Industry wholly owns British Nuclear Fuels, which in turn bought the American company Westinghouse about two years ago. Westinghouse is the dominant player in the design and building of nuclear power plants in America. Hugh Collum, chairman of BNFL, said: "If the full potential of the proposed changes is realised in the US, BNFL will be well positioned to provide nuclear technology through Westinghouse." The nuclear industry was cock-a-hoop yesterday at the boost to its flagging fortunes given by the White House energy panel. America, under President Bush, is now seeking to take the lead in reviving nuclear power generation. Behind the move is a desire to provide an alternative to the relatively dirty fossil-fuel generators. No new nuclear facilities have been built in America since the early 1980s. Mr Bush cited the example of France, which produces 80 per cent of its energy from nuclear stations. But his panel has also recommended investigating fast-breeder reactors, which Britain, France and Japan have all abandoned after accidents. There is also talk in the panel's recommendations of reviving the reprocessing of nuclear material in America, abandoned by the Carter administration. Once fuel is reprocessed, however, it is technically available to terrorist or rogue states if they can steal it. © Copyrightof Telegraph Group Limited2001. Terms & Conditionsof . ***************************************************************** 32 White House reaffirms EPA jurisdiction over Yucca standards May 17, 2001 RENO, Nev. (AP) - White House officials reaffirmed the Bush administration's support Thursday for using the Environmental Protection Agency's radiation standards at a proposed nuclear waste site in Nevada, aides to Rep. Jim Gibbons said. Gibbons, R-Nev., sought new assurances from Vice President Dick Cheney's office that the EPA will set the safety standards, rather than the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Robert Uithoven, an aide to Gibbons, provided The Associated Press with a copy of an e-mail response that he said came from a senior White House official. He declined to name the official. "The Administration remains committed to upholding current law which requires the EPA to set the health and safety standards regarding the amount of radiation that a person can be exposed to," the e-mail said. Part of Bush's new energy plan states that the Energy Department will have to file a license application with the NRC if it moves forward with plans to bulid the waste repository at Yucca Mountain 90 miles north of Las Vegas. "No waste will be sent to any location until the NRC determines it to be safe," the plan said. The White House response Thursday clarified that the NRC will be acting based on the EPA standards, Uithoven said. The e-mail said, "The NRC decides whether the DOE can meet the standards set by the EPA, during the licensing process of the repository site." Critics of the Yucca Mountain site fear the NRC would set less stringent standards than those advocated by the EPA. Last week, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., threatened to block presidential appointments before the Environment and Public Works Committee until the overdue EPA standards were implemented. Vice President Dick Cheney, in a campaign swing through Nevada two weeks before the election, announced that a Bush administration would support EPA standards. But Reid said he believes the NRC, Energy Department and the nuclear power industry are "pressuring the EPA on this issue." All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 33 Task force's leanings questioned May 17, 2001 By Benjamin Grove LAS VEGAS SUN WASHINGTON -- The task force led by Vice President Dick Cheney that created President Bush's energy strategy has been dogged by critics. Bush allies say the criticism of the group that it worked in secret and was cozy with energy industry executives is unfair. "There is a level of mystique around how the energy policy was developed, but it is becoming increasingly apparent that (the energy plan) is a bill of sale to the industry that helped get Bush and Cheney elected," said Lisa Gue, policy analyst for Public Citizen. And that worries Nevada lawmakers because nuclear utility officials are goading the new administration and Congress to haul their highly radioactive waste to Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. More nuclear power means more waste with no good place to put it, they say. "Yucca Mountain is not safe, and the industry will not be able to dump its waste there," Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., has warned. Indeed, Cheney's task force, which worked for four months, was described by the Washington Post as something of a "secret society," in which members were expected not to talk to the media in an effort to curb criticism. Who served on the task force and how much did they rely on industry input? The task force officially included secretaries of energy, interior, transportation, agriculture, commerce and treasury; heads of the Environmental Protection Agency and Federal Emergency Management Agency; Bush deputy chief-of-staff Joshua Bolten; intergovernmental affairs adviser Ruben Barrales; Budget Director Mitchell Daniels Jr.; and Bush economic adviser Lawrence Lindsey. But lower-level staffers reportedly handled much of the grunt work. The group's day-to-day staff director was Andrew Lundquist, who worked as a top aide to the Senate's leading proponent of the Yucca plan, Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, Energy Committee chairman. Another task force staffer was Energy official Joe Kelliher, a former nuclear power lobbyist, Newsweek magazine reported. Nuclear company executives said the task force allowed them to make their pitch. Joe Colvin, president and chief executive of the nuclear power industry's leading lobby group, Nuclear Energy Institute, met at the White House with Lindsey and top Bush adviser Karl Rove in March, NEI spokesman Mitchell Singer told the Sun. Singer didn't reveal details, but said it was more of a general lesson on nuclear power than a presentation of the industry's wish list. "It was an information session about the industry, about how well it has done and how it contributes to the nation's energy mix," Singer said. Other nuclear connections to the Bush administration have surfaced: * Roy Coffee, a trusted Bush adviser and his former Texas lobbyist in Washington, now works for NEI. * Exelon Corp. Co-chairman John Rowe also met personally with Cheney in March. In a two-page follow-up letter obtained by the Sun, he outlined some of the industry's wide-ranging wish list. Exelon owns nuclear power plants and hopes to build new plants in America. The letter included a call for "decisive action" on Yucca Mountain. Exelon spokesman Donald Kirchoffner said resolving the nuclear waste issue was one of the biggest problems facing electric utilities in America. "We believe the right place is probably Yucca Mountain," he said in a Sun interview. * Earlier this month the Democratic National Committee charged that Tom Kuhn, a former Yale classmate of Bush's and president of Edison Electric Institute, is a case study of money-for-access politics. The institute, an electricity trade group, is another leading supporter of the Yucca plan. The committee on its website said Kuhn has "unfettered" access to top Bush officials in exchange for being a top Bush fund-raiser. But an EEI spokesman said that was unfair. Kuhn has not abused his relationship with Bush, EEI spokesman Jim Owen said. Cheney also met with about 10 or 15 electric utility chief executives at an EEI meeting in March, Owen said. One of their messages to Cheney has been that nuclear waste is the biggest obstacle to expanding nuclear power in America, Owen said. Other clues are found on the task force itself, anti-nuclear activists say: Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham voted for Yucca Mountain legislation when he was a senator and has vowed to spur Yucca development. Still, Cheney has denied suggestions that the task force was overly influenced by industry officials who gave money to Republicans. "Just because somebody makes a campaign contribution doesn't mean that they should be denied the opportunity to express their views to government officials," Cheney said in an Associated Press interview this week. Cheney has said he did not meet with any environmental representatives, although a group of green spokespeople met en masse once with task force staffers. "When you go behind closed doors and write the nation's energy policy with industry lobbyists, what you get is a plan that benefits corporations, not consumers," National Environmental Trust President Phil Clapp said in a press statement. Still, no special interest "had the ear" of Bush and Cheney more than another, Cheney spokeswoman Juleanna Glover Weiss told the Sun. She added, "Clearly, nuclear energy is facing a resurgence in support. It's something we have seen in polls recently. Given the conversations about global warming and greenhouse gases, nuclear energy appears to have more public support, and the administration is willing to consider that." Sun wire reports contributed to this article. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Russia Signs Deal to Raise Kursk May 18, 2001 MOSCOW (AP) - Russian officials called a press conference Friday to announce a deal to raise the nuclear submarine Kursk, which sank in the Barents Sea last August, killing all 118 crew members. Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov said a contract would be signed later in the day, Russian news agencies reported. The deal comes after months of negotiations between various salvage companies and the Russian government, which has vowed to pull the submarine from its watery grave near the Arctic circle. Officials did not release the name of the company which would be getting the contract. Media reports said the government was talking with Netherlands-based Mammoet Transport BV, a major operator of heavy-lift cranes which has no experience in raising sunken vessels. Spokesmen for both the government and Mammoet declined to comment further. Russia had negotiated for months with a consortium consisting of the Norwegian branch of the U.S. company Halliburton and the Netherlands' Heerema Marine Contractors and Smit Tak. Then, this week, Klebanov abruptly announced that the contract would go to another company. He gave no reason, but the Kommersant newspaper said the government was unhappy with the consortium's demand for advance payment and compensation for possible damage incurred during the ambitious and risky effort. The Kursk sank after an explosion during maneuvers. The government has not yet determined the cause of the sinking, saying it could have been triggered by an internal malfunction, a collision with a Western submarine or a World War II mine. Most Russian and foreign experts believe that the explosion of a practice torpedo was the most probable cause. President Vladimir Putin vowed to raise the Kursk at an emotional meeting with the victims' relatives shortly after the disaster. Officials say the submarine must be raised to retrieve the bodies of dead sailors and determine why it sank. Divers reached the wreck last fall, but they only managed to retrieve 12 bodies. Some victims' family members said later they would prefer the bodies be left in peace at sea according to naval tradition. Many experts also objected to raising the wreck, citing the project's high cost and the danger that the sub's two nuclear reactors might break open and release radiation. The reactors were automatically shut down when the vessel sank, and regular monitoring has shown no radiation leak. The government so far has earmarked no funds for the Kursk salvage effort, and the consortium's representatives had warned Moscow that the delay in getting started has left little time to finish the complicated operation before autumn storms begin. Klebanov has said the rescue effort would start in July and dismissed warnings that it could be derailed by storms. It wasn't immediately clear how the submarine would be raised to the surface and towed to shore. An earlier plan by the consortium envisaged using a huge crane and a pontoon barge. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 2 Dutch Firm Signs Deal to Raise Russian Sub Kursk Friday May 18 11:20 AM ET MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia signed a contract with Dutch salvage firm Mammoet on Friday to raise the wrecked nuclear submarine Kursk (news - web sites), which plunged to the bottom of the Barents Sea last summer killing all 118 sailors on board. Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Klebanov told reporters the Russian navy, the St. Petersburg-based Rubin bureau which designed the sub and Mammoet had signed a deal to lift the Kursk. He did not give the value of the contract. He said the first stage of the salvage operation in the Barents Sea would run from mid-June to early September, and the actual lift would take place before September 10. The signing ceremony was delayed for almost four hours while ``legal nuances'' were discussed, Interfax news agency quoted Klebanov's office as saying. President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) has always pledged to recover the dead from the Kursk, which was torn open by two unexplained explosions on August 18. But Mammoet emerged only at the last minute from protracted talks on who would salvage the vessel. On the eve of the signing, a consortium comprising Dutch firms Smit Internationale NV and Heerema and U.S. firm Halliburton said Russia had rejected their bid for the contract after more than six months of negotiations. Smit said there was too little time left to prepare safely to salvage the Kursk this summer, but Russia has insisted it be lifted from about 100 meters (330 feet) of Arctic water this year. Klebanov has said it should be raised by September 20. After meeting Klebanov on Friday, Putin said safety should be paramount in the project and that everything would be done to discover the true cause of Russia's worst submarine accident once the wreck was on the surface. It is still unclear what caused the demise of the Kursk, which was one of Russia's most advanced submarines before two unexplained blasts ripped through its bow during training on August 18. Klebanov's government commission is considering three theories: a crash with a foreign submarine, a collision with a World War Two-era mine or the detonation of a faulty torpedo. The bodies of a dozen victims of the accident were recovered last year and Moscow has since pledged to lift the wreck to prevent possible environmental damage. Tests around the site have shown no signs of radioactivity. Copyright © 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or ***************************************************************** NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. For more information go to: *****************************************************************