***************************************************************** 05/23/01 **** RADIATION BULLETIN(RADBULL) **** VOL 9.128 ***************************************************************** RADBULL IS PRODUCED BY THE ABALONE ALLIANCE CLEARINGHOUSE ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER CONTENTS 1 Bush policy renews battle over nuclear dump in Nevada 2 Jury: ExxonMobil should pay $1.06 billion for La. land contamination 3 USEC submits power plant bid 4 REID COSPONSORS TAX AMENDMENT TO SPUR MORE CLEAN, RENEWABLE 5 Opponents dump plan for radioactive waste site in W. Texas 6 TEES fined for radiation safety breach 7 Iodine found in trash delivery 8 Kitty's Litter Sets Off Geiger Counters 9 Technology: Thurmond urges nuclear-power study 10 Senate Energy Panel Delays Hearing on Bush Plan 11 Bush must account for radioactive waste before building more 12 Cheney calls for rational debate on nuclear power 13 Back to the energy Stone Age -- 14 N-power needed, Cheney proclaims Cites green aspects of new 15 STATEMENT OF U.S. SENATOR HARRY REID 16 Bush offers extreme solutions for an overstated crisis 17 Nuclear power's California comeback / SMALL GENERATORS: State's 18 Cheney describes nuclear answer 19 New battle looms on nuclear power Bush energy goals put foes on 20 Nuclear Power Gains in Status After Lobbying 21 Poll: 59% favor nuclear power 22 For Cheney, a Positive Reaction (washingtonpost.com) 23 Cheney delights nuclear faithful 24 REID ANNOUNCES LEGISLATION TO PERMANENTLY FUND PILT PROGRAM 25 Congress, Leaders Discuss Energy 26 Lehrer: NUCLEAR POWER 27 Lehrer: Powering the Future 28 Water leak keeps nuclear plant off line 29 Nuclear powers unite against NMD - 30 Secretary Abraham Starts Implementation of National Energy Policy 31 Government's reactor plans backfire 32 Babbitt backs plan for Yucca repository 33 JAPANESE GOVT SEEKS SUPPORT FOR PLUTONIUM-THERMAL POWER 34 Atomic Energy Agency officials visit North Korea for talks 35 Five builders vying for nuclear power plants 36 AEA quits nuclear facility 37 Nuclear power: the numbers don't add up 38 Nuke Accident Test Fax Draws Red Faces 39 Russia specialist hails nuke accident exercise results 40 Residents skeptical about access to Yucca hearings 41 Moscow Hosts Conference 'Innovation Technologies In Nuclear Power 42 Industry seeks 50 nuke plants 43 Reid played major role in decision of senator 44 Babbitt endorses Yucca Mountain nuclear dump NUCLEAR WEAPONS CONTENTS 1 REID READIES PLAN TO AID FALLON LEUKEMIA EFFORTS 2 Capitol Alert: Neighbors of ex-shipyard fear cleanup's 3 Hanford Completes Soil Cleanup Plan for Columbia River Corridor 4 Don't stop funding INEEL energy research 5 ASK INCKY 6 Y-12 could face cuts in workforce 7 Opinion - OR must continue to focus on the private sector 8 USS Eisenhower at Newport News for refuelling and overhaul 9 Australia partner in bomb plan, files reveal 10 Researcher calls for Maralinga blood tests 11 Only three Maralinga veterans have cancer: govt 12 Only three Maralinga veterans have cancer: govt 13 Study plays down cancer fears 14 UK: Report attacks military stand on DU 15 'More research needed' to explore DU cancer link, say UK **************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR POWER ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 Bush policy renews battle over nuclear dump in Nevada This story was published Wed, May 23, 2001 By The Associated Press LAS VEGAS -- Tourists in 1950s Las Vegas donned sunglasses to watch nuclear mushroom clouds over the horizon at the Nevada Test Site. Today, the city and state fear the prospect of trucks and railroad cars hauling radioactive waste past Las Vegas' glittering new gambling palaces to the test site. "One accident, no matter how minor, could create hysteria," the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce says in its stand against the federal government's proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. Last week, President Bush called for a national nuclear waste repository as part of his energy plan. Bush also called for licensing new reactors and speeding the relicensing of existing plants to ease the nation's power woes. The president did not specifically name Yucca Mountain, but the reference sent shivers through the ranks of those fighting plans to store the nation's nuclear refuse 1,000 feet beneath a wind-swept ridge, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas on the western edge of the test site. "There should be no expansion of nuclear power until we have a way to dispose of the waste for years to come without harming the public," said Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen, a lobbying group opposed to the Yucca Mountain project. Since 1987, Yucca Mountain has been the only site studied to become the graveyard for the nation's 77,000 tons of spent nuclear fuel and high-level radioactive research waste. After $7 billion worth of study and testing, approval of the Energy Department project is at least a year away. The earliest the first load of waste could arrive is 2010. The project is expected to cost $58 billion over 100 years. But things are happening on many fronts. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is holding meetings this week in Las Vegas and the rural community of Pahrump to talk about a construction permit for the site. The Energy Department is taking public comment before forwarding its recommendation next year to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. Abraham will make a recommendation to Bush. If Nevada opposes it, as expected, the decision will be sent to Congress. Meanwhile, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Public Works, has been holding up Bush administration nominations to environmental and public works posts until the Environmental Protection Agency sets radiation standards for the site. "Every nuclear power generator in the country has the ability to safely store the material on site," Reid spokesman David Cherry said Friday. "We're talking about shipping 77,000 tons of waste so deadly that a particle the size of a grain of sand can cause cancer." The city and state are usually conservative and business-friendly. They went for Bush in November. But few support the Yucca Mountain plan. And Nevada's entire four-member congressional delegation is against it. Dusty Las Vegas of 1950 had fewer than 25,000 residents. Today, there are 1.3 million people living in and around Las Vegas, the fastest-growing metropolitan area in the country. The city draws 30 million visitors a year to its casinos and other attractions. Most of the city's 125,000 hotel rooms are on the Las Vegas Strip, which looms over Interstate 15 and the Union Pacific Railroad main line to Yucca Mountain. Gov. Kenny Guinn, a Republican, is asking the Legislature to spend $5 million on an outside-the-state advertising campaign to block the dump. On the Net: Yucca Mountain Project, www.ymp.gov Copyright 2001 Tri-City Herald. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 2 Jury: ExxonMobil should pay $1.06 billion for La. land contamination NJ.com - NewsFlash By BRETT MARTEL The Associated Press 5/22/01 8:01 PM NEW ORLEANS (AP) -- ExxonMobil Corp. must pay $1.06 billion to a family whose land was contaminated with radioactive waste, a jury ruled Tuesday. ExxonMobil did not deny there was contamination on the land, which had been leased by a contractor for the company. The company disputed the amount of radium 226 and radium 228, how much the clean up would cost, and when ExxonMobil first knew there could be a problem. "The jury sent a clear message to Exxon in particular and the oil industry in general that these radioactive materials should and must be cleaned up immediately," said Stuart Smith, an attorney for the Grefer family. The company said it would appeal. ExxonMobil said trace amounts of radium contaminated less than 1 percent of the 33-acre property and that it could be cleaned up for $46,000. Defense attorney Gregory Weiss said the company did not know about the contamination until the late 1980s and offered to clean it up, but the family refused, opting instead to take the case before a jury. The family's attorneys said ExxonMobil had known about the potential for contamination since the 1950s but kept quiet in hopes of avoiding liability for cleanup costs. The jury ruled the company should pay $56 million for cleanup and $1 billion as punishment for not reporting the contamination. The land was leased from the Grefers from the late 1950s until 1992 to Intracoastal Tubular Services, a company contracted to clean Exxon's pipes. Intracoastal was found 15 percent at fault for the contamination, but the jury ruled ExxonMobil should pay their share because only the oil giant could have known that the crust being cleaned from the pipes was radioactive. Copyright 2001 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This ***************************************************************** 3 USEC submits power plant bid The Paducah Sun Paducah, Kentucky Wednesday, May 23, 2001 USEC submits power plant bid By Joe Walker jwalker@paducahsun.com--*270.575.8650* and By Bill Bartleman bbartleman@paducahsun.com--*270.575.8650* A consortium including the United States Enrichment Corp. has submitted a bid to the Tennessee Valley Authority to build a 600-megawatt, gas-fired facility near the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant to provide electricity in the area. USEC spokeswoman Elizabeth Stuckle said the group submitted the bid May 14 and is hoping to make the "short list," expected to be announced July 16, from among several other competitors who have not been identified. The USEC bid is in partnership with Constellation Power Sources, a Baltimore-based power company, and Marubeni Corp., a Japanese firm that trades commodities including electricity. TVA asked for proposals in January to build a 600-megawatt power plant that would operate all year plus smaller summer peaking capacity plants that would operate in the summer to meet high demands from air conditioning. TVA wants to have summer peaking capacity of up to 600 megawatts, which would be in addition to the big plant USEC is proposing. After approving the "short list" in July, TVA will negotiate with those firms until Oct. 15, with plans of signing a contract with the winning bidder by Dec. 14. TVA did not specify where the plants should be located, only that the successful bidder have the ability to deliver the power to the seven-state TVA system. A TVA spokesman said late Tuesday he was unable to provide information on firms that submitted bids because the person in charge of the program was out of the office. Stuckle said the bid amount is proprietary. Another source said a 600-megawatt plant could cost $1 billion or more. Stuckle said if the USEC proposal is approved, construction would begin within two years and provide hundreds of jobs for trades people. The project would be completed in time to begin providing power in 2005. TVA would not own the plant, but would sign a long-term agreement to buy the power that is produced. The power plant would operate at least 30 years, have an undetermined number of "high-paying" jobs and afford large tax-base increases for the county and state, Stuckle said. "It would be a major capital project, be productive reuse of existing Department of Energy property and provide major electrical generation capacity to the Paducah area," she said. The power plant would be built on about 120 acres of DOE land just northeast of the fenced area of the Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, owned by the department and run by USEC. USEC has asked the Paducah Area Community Reuse Organization, which uses Energy Department funds for economic development, to act as leasing agent for the land, said PACRO Director John Anderson. "This is in the early stages because there must be a public hearing involved and that has not been announced yet," Anderson said. "The only public group that has been briefed is the (DOE) Site-Specific Advisory Board. Even the PACRO board has not been made aware of this." He said Charles Martin, a plant USEC official, spoke to the advisory board last Thursday night and wants to meet with PACRO directors in the near future. Arrangements for the lease and other financial details had not been discussed, Anderson said. The first two years of the project will involve considerable preparatory work, notably acquiring an air permit to run the facility, Stuckle said. "It would have minor environmental impact due to modern design and use of natural gas as a fuel source." Power would enter the TVA grid and be used locally or to provide added capacity across the system, she said. If USEC is successful, the plant would represent a true economic development partnership among USEC, the reuse organization and the Greater Paducah Economic Development Council, Stuckle said. GPEDC President Stuart Gilbert was unavailable Tuesday afternoon. The bid also reflects an effort by financially troubled USEC, which produces enriched uranium for nuclear fuel, to broaden its revenue base. USEC is doing environmental cleanup work at the plant and has bid on a Department of Energy project to convert thousands of uranium hexafluoride waste cylinders into safer material. "The bottom line is we're looking at a variety of initiatives to diversify the company," Stuckle said. This project is in addition to a summer peaking capacity plant that will be built in Marshall County by Duke Energy Co. At least one other company, EnviroPower of Lexington, is looking at sites in Marshall and McCracken counties to build a coal-fired power plant that would cost up to $2 billion. The company wants to connect to the TVA grid to transfer the power to suppliers on the East Coast. ***************************************************************** 4 REID COSPONSORS TAX AMENDMENT TO SPUR MORE CLEAN, RENEWABLE ENERGY DEVELOPMENT [Sen. Reid Press Release] May 21, 2001 Washington, D.C. – Saying it will provide jobs, spur technologyand protect public health, Environment and Public Works CommitteeRanking Democrat Harry Reidtoday cosponsored an amendment to the tax legislation to expand and make permanent a tax credit for renewable energy production. "Americans want a national energy strategy that will protect our quality of life without sacrificing prosperity or the environment. But we can only reach that goal through increased investment in clean forms of renewable energy," said Reid, the Assistant Democratic Leader. "While we already have a tax credit for wind energy, we must also include solar, geothermal and other forms of 'green' energy. And by creating a permanent tax credit, we can encourage investment in renewable power and the development of innovative new technology." The amendment would expand the existing production tax credit to cover wind, animal and poultry waste, closed- and open loop biomass, incremental hydropower, municipal solid waste, geothermal energy, landfill gas, and steel cogeneration. The production tax credit for renewable energy would be raised from 1.5 to 1.8 cents per kilowatt hour, and the credit would be made permanent. The amendment also provides for a one cent production tax credit for co-firing coal power plants with biomass, which can significantly reduce emissions. "Expanding renewable energy industries in the U.S. also will provide new employment opportunities and help American made technologies compete in the world marketplace," Reid said. "In states like Nevada, expanded renewable energy production will provide jobs in rural areas – areas that have been largely left out of America's recent economic growth. It also provides public health and environmental benefits from decreased pollution and the use of less fossil fuels." A permanent tax credit also would serve as an incentive for lenders and others to make long term investments in renewable energy development and production. "We need a permanent credit to provide business certainty and signal America's long-term commitment to renewable energy resources. I recently learned that an innovative wind farm project in Nevada has not been able to secure loans due to the uncertain nature of existing tax credits for wind energy production. Without a permanent renewable energy tax credit, utilities will never have the certainty required to invest in expanding their renewable energy resources," said Reid The Reid amendment also provides tax credits to encourage blending of renewable energy with traditional fuels and provides an additional 0.25-cent credit for renewable facilities on native American and native Alaskan lands. Finally, the amendment provides a production incentive to tax exempt energy production facilities (e.g., public power utilities) by allowing them to transfer their credits to taxable entities. ***************************************************************** 5 Opponents dump plan for radioactive waste site in W. Texas The Dallas Morning News: Texas/Southwest 05/22/2001 By Randy Lee Loftis / The Dallas Morning News AUSTIN  A bill that would have made Texas a graveyard for low-level radioactive waste from federal weapons sites is dead, the bill's top House backer said late Monday. "It ain't going to happen," said Rep. Warren Chisum, R-Pampa. Opponents scored a one-two punch against the bill, which environmentalists have described as a giveaway to Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons. Mr. Simmons controls the only company that sought to establish a radioactive waste disposal site. The first blow came Sunday night when the House calendars committee refused to schedule the measure for a vote by the full House. Supporters looked for another home for the measure, seeking to offer it as an amendment to another bill, but Mr. Chisum said they came up empty. Environmentalists hailed the demise of the bill, which some called the worst of the 2001 Legislature. But they said backers might try to revive it as an amendment. "This was the greed factor," said Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth. "This was so greedy and so contrary to the best interests of the state that they lost the bill." Mr. Burnam said, however, that he and other opponents of the bill were on guard against its possible return in another form. "It ain't over until it's over, but it's looking better every hour," he said. The original bill by Sen. Robert Duncan, R-Lubbock, sought to set up a low-level radioactive waste disposal site in West Texas. That site would have accepted waste from sources in Texas, Vermont and Maine, which have a radioactive waste management pact. Low-level radioactive waste consists of contaminated tools, clothing and other materials from nuclear power plants, hospitals and some industries. It does not include highly radioactive spent fuel from nuclear power plants. That waste is shipped to disposal sites in Utah and South Carolina. However, when the bill passed the Senate, it included an amendment by Sen. Teel Bivins, R-Amarillo, that would allow construction of an additional site to take waste from U.S. Department of Energy weapons sites. Waste at the sites would have been buried in containers. Mr. Simmons' company, Waste Control Specialists, operates a hazardous waste dump in Andrews County. After the company settled a dispute with a potential competitor this year, Waste Control Specialists was the only company with a stated interest in building a low-level radioactive dump  and Andrews County became the only candidate as a site. When Mr. Duncan's original bill did not include a plan for federal weapons waste, however, Mr. Simmons' lobbyists spread the word that Texas, Vermont and Maine wouldn't generate enough waste to make the venture profitable. Mr. Simmons has worked for years to create a Texas dump for federal radioactive waste. "Without the DOE waste, there isn't enough volume to make it economically viable," said Eric Peus, Waste Control Specialists' president and chief executive officer. "It just won't work." Just as Mr. Simmons' company sent out its lobbyists, environmentalists mobilized their opposition. "This bill is wrong in nearly every respect," said Erin Rogers of the Sierra Club's Texas chapter. "It's the wrong approach for a nonexistent problem." Environmentalists said they favored aboveground storage at one of Texas' two nuclear power plants  either TXU's Comanche Peak plant in Glen Rose or Houston Lighting & Power's South Texas plant near Bay City. The bill to allow a radioactive waste dump in Texas grew out of an earlier failure. In 1998 the Texas Natural Resource Conservation Commission denied a permit for a proposed dump in Hudspeth County, 75 miles southeast of El Paso. Mr. Chisum said he spoke to Mr. Simmons by phone Monday to give him the news. He said Mr. Simmons, who was in Sydney, Australia, was disappointed. "He said they were going to have to make some serious corporate decisions," Mr. Chisum said. "He was disappointed that they [House members] couldn't show they could handle it." *Anne Marie Kilday of the Austin Bureau contributed to this report.* © 2001 The Dallas Morning News Privacy policy 2000 EPpy ***************************************************************** 6 TEES fined for radiation safety breach The Bryan-College Station Eagle-Region May 23, 2001 By JOHN LeBAS Eagle Staff Writer The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has fined the Texas Engineering Experiment Station $2,400 for improperly shipping radioactive material from the Nuclear Science Center in College Station. Vials of radioactive bromine-82 fell out of an unlatched protective container when it was knocked over in Memphis, Tenn., during a December shipment. In a subsequent investigation, the NRC could not determine if anyone had been exposed to radiation in excess of federal limits. However, an NRC spokesman said Tuesday there was a “strong likelihood” that some transportation workers involved in the shipment were exposed to radiation. The Texas Engineering Experiment Station is a member agency of the Texas A&M University System. The experiment station, which oversees the Nuclear Science Center, has 30 days to pay the fine or file a protest. Agency spokesman Rob Robideau said officials have not decided which course they will follow but will respond within that time frame. NRC officials also faulted the shipping workers who knocked over the container for not reporting the incident. NRC spokesman Breck Henderson could not confirm Tuesday which shipping company was involved. The experiment station’s fine was cut in half, in part because other parties were involved. Also, Nuclear Science Center officials implemented corrective measures, including improved training for shipping employees, after the incident. “They’ve been very cooperative all along,” said Henderson. “They agree their shipping people made a serious mistake.” The Nuclear Science Center operates a small nuclear research reactor near Easterwood Airport. Bromine-82, which has a half-life of 35 hours, is often used as a tracer in refineries. The unsecured shipment left College Station Dec. 4, bound for an industrial-testing company in the Virgin Islands. When the shipment arrived at St. Croix, workers found three vials of bromine-82 resting atop a 750-pound protective container. Because the material — clearly marked radioactive — should have been secured inside the container, company officials notified the NRC. The NRC determined that a worker at the Nuclear Science Center did not install a latch pin on the container as required before shipping. The container was knocked over in Memphis, the lid came off and the vials of bromine-82 fell out. None of the glass-and-copper vials broke or leaked. Henderson said shipping workers in Memphis made an “egregious error” when they simply placed the vials on top of the container without notifying authorities. It was then sent on to St. Croix. Anyone within a few feet of the unshielded bromine-82 could have received a radiation dose greater than 0.1 rem, the federal exposure limit for the public, Henderson said. People receive an average exposure of 0.3 rem per year from natural sources. “Just a dose in excess of federal limits would not cause someone to be killed or cause serious health effects,” Henderson said. “But the limit is set low so we have a chance to take action before somebody is seriously hurt.” Bromine-82’s half-life is considered short, and the amount in the vials would have broken down in about a week, Henderson said. The NRC has not determined who knocked over the container or how much contact the person responsible had with the bromine-82. Robideau would not say if any disciplinary action was taken against the employee who failed to latch the container. • *John LeBas’ e-mail address is jlebas@theeagle.com* © 2000, 2001 The Bryan/College Station Eagle Privacy Statement ***************************************************************** 7 Iodine found in trash delivery thejournalnews.com : Regional Story By MELISSA KLEIN THE JOURNAL NEWS (Original publication: May 23, 2001) Something smelled about the 20-ton shipment of Westchester County garbage that arrived for disposal in Poland, Ohio. But it wasn't any foul odor that sent Geiger counters clicking and the truckload of trash back East. The offending substance turned out to be two cups of hot cat litter. "The (cat litter) was radioactive," Mike Clendenin, a spokesman for Consolidated Edison, said yesterday. Workers at Con Edison's Indian Point 2 nuclear power plant in Buchanan were called in to help pinpoint the hot spot once the shipment returned to the Karta Corp. in Peekskill last week. Clendenin said the plastic bag of litter was laced with Iodine-131 at levels low enough that standing next to the trash for one hour would result in the same radiation exposure as a dental X-ray. Iodine-131 is perhaps best known from the radioactive fallout of the nuclear weapons tests done in Nevada during the 1950s and 1960s. It is now used to treat thyroid maladies, including cancer in humans — and benign thyroid tumors in cats. "Iodine-131 is a very effective and a very safe treatment for this condition, which is otherwise a potentially fatal condition in cats," said Dr. Douglas Aspros, a White Plains veterinarian who is also chairman of the Westchester County Board of Health. The use of Iodine-131 is strictly regulated and the only place in Westchester and Putnam counties where cats can receive treatment is at Radiocat, a company affiliated with Bond Animal Hospital where Aspros practices. No one at Radiocat was available for comment yesterday. Aspros said animals are treated with Iodine-131 in a lead-lined room and remain at the hospital for five to seven days. He said it seemed unlikely that the tainted cat litter came from Radiocat, since its waste is stored for about 90 days until it is no longer radioactive. "Once you get home, the cats are still urinating out a small amount of radioactive iodine," he said. He said cat owners are given special litter that can be flushed down the toilet rather than tossed in the trash. The cat litter that spoiled the trash shipment is now at Indian Point where it will remain until it is safe for regular disposal, Clendenin said. Meanwhile, the Karta company is trying to find out how something radioactive ended up at its processing facility. The company operates a transfer station that accepts trash from several private and municipal haulers, said Paul Anderson, the operations manager. Anderson said the rejected shipment cost the company about an extra $700. He said the company had called the state Department of Environmental Conservation to find out how to prevent a similar hot load. Copyright 2001 The Journal News, a newspaper. Use of this ***************************************************************** 8 Kitty's Litter Sets Off Geiger Counters Koin.com - *Roadioactive Material Found In Cat's Waste* BUCHANAN, N.Y., 9:04 a.m. EDT May 23, 2001 -- A 20-ton shipment of Westchester County garbage, shipped to Ohio for disposal, was sent back because of what turned out to be two cups of radioactive cat litter. Now the litter is being held where they know how to handle such stuff -- at the Indian Point nuclear power plant. Con Edison spokesman Mike Clendenin said that experts from the plant had been called in by the Karta Corp. of Peekskill, N.Y., which accepts trash from various private and municipal waste haulers. A truckload had been returned from Poland, Ohio, because it set off Geiger counters, and Karta wanted to know what could possibly be radioactive. The experts traced the radiation to the cat litter, which apparently had been used by a cat who had been treated for thyroid tumors with iodine-131. Such a cat's urine, even a week after treatment, can be slightly radioactive, and owners are supposed to use a special litter that can be flushed rather than thrown away. The litter will be stored at Indian Point for a few months until it is no longer radioactive and is safe for regular disposal. *Copyright 2001 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 9 Technology: Thurmond urges nuclear-power study Augusta Georgia: 05/23/01 *Web posted Wednesday, May 23, 2001 By Brandon Haddock *Staff Writer* U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond is stepping up his fight for a study of whether a nuclear-power plant could be built at Savannah River Site. Mr. Thurmond, R-S.C., introduced legislation Tuesday that would require U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham to study the feasibility of allowing utilities to build commercial nuclear-power plants on nuclear-weapons sites such as SRS. If the legislation passes, Mr. Abraham's report would be due within 90 days. ''Now is the time to address America's serious energy shortage, before it further jeopardizes our economy, national security and standard of living,'' Mr. Thurmond said in a statement. ''I look forward to working with President Bush on his energy initiative to ensure that the United States takes advantage of this underused power source.'' The senator already has written a letter to Vice President Dick Cheney about his proposal. An Energy Department spokesman in Washington did not return a telephone call placed Tuesday afternoon seeking comment about the legislation. Some nuclear proponents long have pushed for the location of commercial nuclear-power plants at weapons sites. Co-locations would eliminate the need for utilities to acquire land for new plants, and also ease the licensing process for new nuclear-power facilities, supporters say. But critics charge that the proposal is unnecessary, and plays to public fears. ''It's just a ploy to try to ram more nuclear power down the throats of the public using fear of blackouts as a public-relations tool,'' said Don Moniak, an Aiken resident and community organizer for the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League. ''Where's the demand, outside of the pro-nuclear lobby in this region? It would be a further subsidy of the reactor industry. If the utilities think it's a good idea, they ought to fund it themselves.'' Reach Brandon Haddock at (706) 823-3409 or bhaddock@augustachronicle.com. AugustaChronicle.com is a proud member of Augusta.com. ***************************************************************** 10 Senate Energy Panel Delays Hearing on Bush Plan Wednesday May 23 9:43 AM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Senate Energy Committee said it postponed a Wednesday hearing where Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham (news - web sites) was scheduled to promote the White House's plan to reduce dependence on foreign oil with more oil, coal, natural gas, and nuclear power production. The hearing, which had been set to begin at 9:30 a.m. EDT, will be rescheduled, according to a committee staffer. No other information was immediately available. A spokeswoman for Abraham said the hearing was postponed because of the U.S. Senate's continuing debate on President Bush (news - web sites)'s tax cut bill. The Senate was expected to approve a $1.35 trillion tax cut package on Wednesday, but the bill's ultimate fate was thrown into question by a possible defection of Vermont Sen. James Jeffords from the Republican party. Such a move would take Senate control away from Republicans and give it to Democrats. Abraham was to testify at a Senate Energy Committee hearing on how the White House plans to boost domestic energy supplies, improve natural gas pipelines and electricity transmission lines, and adopt conservation measures. Abraham has repeatedly said the Bush plan is a ``balanced'' one that takes into account environmental issues. As a Republican senator from Michigan, he staunchly opposed efforts to tighten vehicle fuel efficiency standards -- an approach endorsed by environmental groups as the best way to cut oil use. Many of the 105 recommendations in the White House plan were being picked over by lawmakers for adding to separate Republican- or Democratic-sponsored energy bills already pending in Congress. Some measures in the energy plan can be ordered by the president, while others require agency rulemakings. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi has said he wants to clear the Republican bill out of the energy panel and move it the full Senate for debate by the third week of June. Copyright © 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 11 Bush must account for radioactive waste before building more plants, utilities say - 5/22/2001 - ENN.com Tuesday, May 22, 2001 By Vibeke Laroi , Reuters SAN FRANCISCO — Before pushing ahead with plans to boost nuclear power in the U.S., the Bush administration needs to find a permanent home for over 40,000 metric tons of existing highly radioactive waste. So say utilities — stuck holding spent fuel in temporary storage until a central deposit can be found — and environmentalists, who are in rare agreement on the need to contain this dangerous waste before heaping more on the pile. Although the most highly radioactive spent fuel declines the most rapidly, some of the radiation will stay around for thousands of years. "The Bush energy plan can urge utilities to build new nuclear plants, but the government needs to look to its own responsibilities on the waste issue," Thomas Neff, senior research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, told Reuters. "The main reason for opposition to nuclear right now is the nuclear waste problem," he said. Green groups promise to block any new nuclear units partly because of the spent fuel problem, while utilities say lack of a waste dump remains a key barrier to building more reactors. Last week President Bush laid out a plan to attack "the most serious energy shortage" since the 1970s, calling for, among other things, heavier reliance on nuclear power and recommending speeding the approval process for new reactors and providing tax breaks for nuclear plant purchases. His energy policy task force said the U.S. could boost its use of nuclear power by doubling the number of reactors at many nuclear sites already licensed by the federal government. There are currently 103 nuclear reactors operating at 64 sites in 31 states, accounting for some 20 percent of all U.S. electricity generation. Although these sites were designed to host four to six reactors, most operate only two or three. The reactors have produced about 42,000 metric tons of spent fuel — enough to fill one football field 15 feet (4.6 meters) deep — and continue to generate some 2,000 tons a year. YUCCA MOUNTAIN Over two decades, scientists have spent close to $7 billion studying and testing Yucca Mountain, in a remote corner of a nuclear weapons' test site in the Nevada desert, as the nation's permanent underground nuclear waste repository. No country has yet built or operated one. Yucca Mountain, about 90 miles (144 km) from Las Vegas, is the sole site — of an original nine candidates for a U.S. nuclear waste repository — to undergo extensive studies. "It is the most studied piece of real estate on the planet," Rod McCullum, senior project manager for used fuel at the trade group Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), told Reuters. Under federal law, the Department of Energy is supposed to have constructed a site and taken title to the waste. Some power generators have sued the federal government for breaking an agreement to store nuclear fuel starting in 1998. If approved, Yucca Mountain could begin storing fuel in 2010. Although impatient utilities may build new nuclear plants anyway, they are certainly going to put more pressure on the government to solve the waste problem, Neff said. "The government has been collecting money from utilities for decades now to do something with this waste and it has not done it. So the answer back from the utilities to the Bush enthusiasm about nuclear is, 'Well get your job done guys."' So far utilities have put over $17 billion into a nuclear waste fund. Yucca Mountain, designed to store about 77,000 metric tons of nuclear waste, is expected to cost some $49.3 billion to build, excluding money already spent on research. ENERGY PLAN, STORAGE LINKED No U.S. nuclear power plants have been licensed since the 1979 accident at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island plant effectively halted the U.S. nuclear industry in its tracks. It was not a high priority for the federal government to make a decision on the controversial nuclear waste issue when it was assumed nuclear units would shut down after their 40-year licenses expired and store spent fuel on-site, either in water pools or in dry casks, Nancy Messer, an electric utility analyst with Standard & Poor's, told Reuters. "That sort of left the politicians with an out for not making a hard decision," she said. But now licenses of most nuclear units are expected to be extended by 20 years, the units have improved their performance and cut operating costs, federal regulators have streamlined the licensing process and standardized nuclear plant designs, and utilities are running out of on-site storage. "A lot of the dynamics have changed that make it a more business friendly environment," Messer said. This situation, on top of the Bush administration's desire to boost the nation's nuclear capacity, could put pressure on parties to come together and work out a deal on waste storage. "A decision could come as a result of this energy policy and the Bush administration's desire to get some movement in the direction of making the environment more compatible for nuclear," Messer said. But she said any decision would have to include trade-offs and compensation to the state of Nevada. Environmentalists, many in Congress, and a block of Nevada officials want to block the use of the Yucca Mountain site. Concerns about the enforcement of radiation exposure standards, transportation of nuclear waste and geological positioning are among the main reasons for the objections. Opponents say the huge amounts of nuclear waste could contaminate groundwater or be released during an earthquake. Nevada ranks third in the nation for seismic activity. This winter Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham is expected to offer his recommendation to Bush on whether to proceed with Yucca Mountain as the repository site, after which the president will make a recommendation to Congress. If the state of Nevada disapproves, as is expected, the decision can be overruled only by a majority vote in Congress. James Asselstine, managing director of Lehman Brothers, said given the "excellent cost and operating performance" of existing U.S. nuclear units, it is reasonable to consider, as Bush's task force has, looking at additional nuclear reactors. But several requirements must be met, including public acceptance of building more nuclear units. "Some additional progress in developing a solution to the waste disposal problem is ... probably necessary in order to build sufficient public acceptance," Asselstine said. Copyright 2001, Reuters Copyright © 2001 Environmental News Network Inc. ***************************************************************** 12 Cheney calls for rational debate on nuclear power -- The Washington Times May 23, 2001 By Bill Sammon and Patrice Hill THE WASHINGTON TIMES Vice President Richard B. Cheney yesterday called for a cessation of the emotionalism that for decades has plagued the debate over nuclear power, which he vowed will supply a much greater share of America´s electricity in the future. "Everybody stay calm and cool and collected and try to be objective and as nonemotional as possible," Mr. Cheney said at the Nuclear Energy Institute´s annual conference in Washington.      The vice president said the debate over nuclear power must take place "without people falling back on the stereotypes that have so often characterized these kinds of discussions in the past." He was referring to the demonization of nuclear power by liberals, who have redoubled their efforts since President Bush announced this month that America must embrace nuclear power to help solve the burgeoning energy crisis. "Nuclear power is a very important part of our energy policy today in the United States," Mr. Cheney said. "One out of five homes in America today runs on electricity generated by nuclear energy. American electricity is already being provided through the nuclear industry efficiently, safely, with no discharge of the greenhouse gases or emissions." The Bush administration, stung by Democratic accusations that it is environmentally insensitive, is playing up the fact that nuclear plants emit none of the smoke and particulates of coal-fired plants. "We want to assess the potential for nuclear energy to make a major contribution in terms of improving air quality," Mr. Cheney said. He made it clear that if environmentalists succeed in derailing the administration´s push for more nuclear plants, the nation will be forced to build even greater numbers of fossil-burning facilities. "The bottom line is we still have inadequate supplies," Mr. Cheney said. "And the only way to close that gap is to generate more electric power." "It´s going to be coal-fired, it´s going to be gas-fired, or it´s going to come from nuclear power," he added. "If we reduce the amount of power generated from nuclear energy, we will, in fact, have to make that up from other sources." Rather than reduce the amount of nuclear energy, the Bush administration is trying to stimulate greater nuclear development. It has pointed to countries such as France, where nuclear plants generate 60 percent of the electricity, triple the U.S. level. But in recent decades, U.S. utilities have shied away from building new nuclear plants because of the onerous licensing and regulatory process. Environmentalists and other intervenors add years in construction delays and billions in cost overruns through lawsuits. "We want to encourage the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to expedite applications for new advanced technology reactors, with the top criteria being safety and environmental protection," Mr. Cheney said. "We want to encourage the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to relicense existing plants that meet or exceed safety standards." No new nuclear plants have been commissioned in the United States since a 1979 accident at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania. Although the core of the reactor went into partial meltdown, no one was killed or injured. In fact, no one has been killed by radiation in the history of the U.S. nuclear industry. Although coal routinely claims the lives of miners both through accidents and black-lung disease and also ends up in the lungs of people who live near coal-fired power plants, coal plants are viewed as safer than nuclear plants by many Americans. Since nuclear plants emit no harmful emissions, its biggest environmental drawback is where to store the spent fuel, which remains radioactive for many years. Most states oppose construction of long-term nuclear waste facilities within their borders. "As we prepare to increase nuclear generating capacity in the future, we also want to get on with the business of finding a geologic repository for long-term waste disposal," Mr. Cheney said. Mr. Cheney´s pledge to resolve the storage question -- perhaps as soon as this year -- would remove the single biggest obstacle to development of nuclear power in the United States, analysts say. While the vice president acknowledged nuclear power is an issue that causes "considerable controversy," he emphasized that Mr. Bush "didn´t come to town to duck the tough issues." In his speech, Mr. Cheney alluded to the administration´s review of Clean Air Act regulations that do not give nuclear power plants credit for being free of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and other pollutants regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency. Changing those regulations could give nuclear power plants a major economic advantage they don´t now have, enabling them to sell credits for their reduced emissions to other utilities that go over their limits. Mr. Cheney´s promotion of nuclear power as a "green" and seemingly limitless source of electricity comes just as environmental groups were mounting a major campaign to kill the industry, which until a few months ago they believed was dead and buried. To the consternation of environmentalists, opinion polls this year have shown increasing public support for building new nuclear plants in the wake of California´s electricity crisis, prompting the Bush administration to take an aggressive stand promoting the industry. After appearing quiescent on the issue for much of the year, major environmental groups last week came out in force when the White House announced its nuclear plans, making it clear that blocking nuclear power has once again become a top priority. Still, much of what the administration wants to do to promote nuclear power can be done administratively, analysts say. If the White House takes action through executive order and the regulatory agencies, environmentalists may have to take their battle into the courts. Another development that complicates the administration´s task is unexpected opposition from the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, which argues that the nuclear power industry could not survive without government insurance and other subsidies and should be allowed to die. "The administration needs to practice the free-market rhetoric that it preaches and put away its nuclear pompons," Cato analysts Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren wrote in a newspaper opinion article last week. All site contents copyright © 2001 News World Communications, ***************************************************************** 13 Back to the energy Stone Age -- The Washington Times May 23, 2001 Tony Blankley A quarter-century ago, the renowned Stanford ecologist Professor Paul Ehrlich wrote: "Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun." He wrote those words in the face of the uncontradicted fact that, since the Industrial Revolution more than two centuries ago, there is no example of prosperity increasing without an increase in energy use. A huge majority of Americans utterly reject the idea that we should not hope and plan for a society in which our children will be more prosperous than we are. So far, no American generation has failed to deliver on that hope for their children´s or grandchildren´s generation. And yet, Mr. Ehrlich´s sneering assessment of America and the West is at the heart of today´s political fight about energy. This contempt for American prosperity now has metastasized into a generalized loathing for all things American. In last Sunday´s New York Times, Maureen Dowd, the most gifted political and cultural columnist currently writing, let loose with 800 words of hatred for America: ". . . We don´t have limits, we have liberties . . . We´ll bake the Earth . . . We will drive faster in our gigantic air conditioned cars . . . We will let our power plants spew any chemicals . . . We will drill for oil whenever and wherever we please . . . We don´t care about caribou . . . We want our refrigerators cold . . . We will put toxic waste wherever we want, whenever we waste it . . . We will have the biggest baddest missiles . . . We will thrust as many satellites as we want into outer space . . . We will modify any food in any way we want and send it to any country we see fit at prices that we and we alone determine . . . We will fly up any coast of any nation with any plane filled with surveillance equipment . . . We will kill any criminal we want . . . We are America." Let´s put to the side her many manifest factual errors (we don´t let our power plants spew any chemicals, we redesigned that Alaska pipeline and increased the number of caribou, we don´t put nuclear waste wherever we want, we are reducing the number of our missiles, we don´t force modified food on any country, we don´t set prices, we don´t kill any criminals we want we execute only proven murderers). Standing as asserted, the Ehrlich/Dowd/Democratic Party thesis rejects President Bush´s energy program not because it won´t provide us with abundant, affordable, environmentally safe energy and the prosperity that comes with it, but because it will. The battle is joined, and on terms that give good reason to hope for victory. Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle put it quite well, if idiotically, last Thursday: " is not a plan for America´s future, it´s a page from our past. It relies almost exclusively on the old ways of doing things: drilling more oil wells, burning more coal and using more natural gas." He left out more nuclear energy, but . . . well, yes. In the past we had abundant energy and ever increasing prosperity. If we don´t develop sources of energy, the future will be unlike the past we and our children will have to make do with less and less. Mr. Daschle thinks conservation is the answer. Conservation is useful if it means producing and using energy more efficiently. Engines summoned by marketplace demand have been getting more efficient for 200 years. But it´s not enough. What Mr. Daschle means by conservation is giving up energy-consuming activities. If we cut back 10 percent per year on our energy use, in only 10 years we will not need any energy we will live by our muscle power. Mankind has tried that it´s called the Stone Age. And, as Mr. Ehrlich and Miss Dowd let out of the bag, something like that is their America-loathing objective. They don´t think Americans have a right to the American way of life. Half of the new vehicles sold in America are SUVs. They think Americans shouldn´t have that liberty. We shouldn´t have large refrigerators that keep our children´s milk cold. Food poisoning would be preferable. They don´t think old people (or the rest of us) should have the comfort of air conditioning. Let the old folks die from heat prostration. They don´t think the grain that makes our daily bread should be cultivated and grown as cheaply as possible. Let the poor people go without. Or let them eat cake. When the liberals say this is a battle for the future against the policies of the past, they mean it. They hate our past. They hate our prosperity.They hate the American way of life. They think that Americans are a blight on the land. Let every American look upon the face of a child and ask: Is this a blight or a blessing? E-mail: tonyblankley@erols.com Tony Blankley is a columnist for The Washington Times. His column ***************************************************************** 14 N-power needed, Cheney proclaims Cites green aspects of new energy plan Boston Globe Online / Nation | World By Tom Doggett, Reuters, 5/23/2001 WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney says the nation's energy problem is a ''storm cloud on the horizon'' that could threaten the economy unless the White House energy plan is adopted. In a speech yesterday to the Nuclear Energy Institute, Cheney said a key component of the energy plan calls for more nuclear power to generate electricity needed for computers and other consumer demand. ''We think that it does have a significant contribution to make going forward,'' Cheney said of nuclear power. The administration's energy plan promotes increased production of oil, natural gas, coal, and nuclear power. Cheney's speech was part of the administration's effort to build support for its energy plan, which was put together by a task force headed by Cheney and unveiled last week by President Bush. Bush, a former Texas oilman, and Cheney, the former top executive of oilfield services giant Halliburton Co., have been criticized by Democrats and environmental groups for being too eager to please the energy industry, which donated millions of dollars to the Republican campaign last year. Cheney defended the White House plan, saying that more of its 105 recommendations were related to renewable fuels and conservation measures than to boosting fossil fuel supplies. Without an overhaul of US energy policies, the nation risks economic damage, he said. ''You could spot a storm cloud on the horizon out there that could conceivably threaten our prosperity as a nation and adversely affect the lives of millions of Americans,'' he said. Nuclear power, which already provides the electricity for one out of five US homes, should play a bigger role in the energy mix for the nation's prosperity, he said. While Cheney was greeted warmly by the nuclear industry group, the White House faces stiff opposition from some environmental groups. They contend that in addition to nuclear safety issues, the federal government has yet to reach a solution on what to do with highly radioactive waste produced by plants. This story ran on page 24 of the Boston Globe on 5/23/2001. © ***************************************************************** 15 STATEMENT OF U.S. SENATOR HARRY REID May 17, 2001 Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Harry Reid, Ranking Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee, today released the following statement today during a hearing for Bush Administrationnominees. "Thank you, Mr. Chairman for holding this hearing this morning. I know the Administration, and in particular, Administrator Whitman, are anxious to get their people in place to help with the important issues ahead. As many of you know, I have sent a letter to the President and Administrator Whitman informing them that I intend to hold Administration nominations until the radiation standard for Yucca Mountain, including the groundwater standard, is published in the Federal Register. The proposed Yucca Mountain Repository would be located approximately 90 miles from Las Vegas, Nevada's largest and expanding city. In addition to being home to more than 1.3 million Nevadans, Las Vegas and its neighboring communities draw more than 30 million visitors each year. Contamination of groundwater or the surrounding environmentfrom radiation would create an unacceptable human health risk and would threaten the tourism and recreation-based economy, which provides jobs and important tax revenue to Nevada and its communities. The NRC must determine whether Yucca Mountain will meet radiation release standards established by the EPAunder authority granted by the 1992 Energy Policy Act. The Act requires EPA to set the standards based on, and consistent with, the findings and recommendations of the National Academy of Sciences' "Technical Bases for Yucca Mountain Standards" report. EPA not only considered the report but also public comments received on the report from public hearings as well as additional written comments. EPA also considered previous applicable regulations such as the generic standards for radioactive wastes used at the Waste Isolation Pilot Project in New Mexico. EPA held public hearings in Nevada and Washington, D.C. in October of 1999 and had a 90-day comment period in late 1999. Although the EPA submitted a final rule to the Office of Management and Budget(OMB) in late January 2001, the standards have not been published. I am concerned that the Nuclear Regulatory Commissionand the Department of Energyare attempting to weaken the provisions of the EPA standards through the interagency review. The DOE and NRC are legally responsible for site recommendation and licensing respectively, not radiation standards. There is a clear separation of authority. Through their actions, the DOE and NRC may give the impression that they are seeking to establish limits they believe Yucca would satisfy. This would undermine the public's confidence in the objective, scientific nature of the site recommendation and standard setting processes and set a worrisome precedent for EPA's ability to conduct its statutory responsibilities using sound science. This standard is not only important to the citizen's of my state of Nevada, it is important for all of us because, under the law, EPA - the agency responsible for protecting our environment - should be allowed to do just that - protect the environment. The Chairman and I have talked and, at this time, I will not object to reporting nominees from the EPW Committee. I have also talked to Administrator Whitman. I have agreed to support the nomination of Ms. Fisher, who is nominated to be Administrator Whitman's Deputy, because the Administrator agrees with me and has assured me that she will do everything she can to get the EPA standard for Yucca Mountain published. However, until the standard for Yucca Mountain that represents the best judgement of the EPA -- not the NRC or DOE -- is published in the Federal Register, I will hold other Administration nominees from moving out of the Senate. ***************************************************************** 16 Editorial: Energy exaggerations [PG News] [Special Reports: Post-Gazette Bush offers extreme solutions for an overstated crisis Wednesday, May 23, 2001 For America, energy has usually been cheap and abundant. The current energy crunch is not so much a crisis as an unpleasant dose of reality, bringing consumers face to face with the notion of cost and limits. California has been hit the hardest with a botched electricity deregulation scheme, which created shortages that were exacerbated by energy companies. The rest of the country has been hit with rising natural gas and oil prices, fed by increased consumption and an unresponsive distribution system. That is the backdrop for the Bush administration's energy plan. After months of closed-door deliberations, a task force headed by Vice President Dick Cheney concluded that the best government response to the energy shortages is to encourage more drilling for oil and natural gas, more burning of coal, more nuclear power, fewer environmental regulations and a smidgen of conservation. Mr. Cheney previewed the report by dismissing the value of conservation saying it is a personal virtue but not much of a policy prescription, and Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer spoke of massive energy consumption as an American birthright. The report that emerged was amended to counter the firestorm sparked by such indiscreet comments. But there is little doubt in the document, and in its funding priorities, that alternative fuels and conservation take second place to increased production. One of the reasons gasoline prices have spiked is that American motorists have been on a gas-guzzling binge. After years of increased fuel efficiency and smaller cars, gas hogs are back with a vengeance. More refineries are being built to meet the need - driven by market conditions, not government fiat. As for increasing fuel efficiency, the president's plan promises only to study the issue, but it insists on opening up the Arctic refuge and other public lands for oil drilling. That would be a mistake. To encourage the use of more coal, which is abundant and cheap but also dirty, the administration would offer $2 billion in tax incentives to develop a clean coal technology. Cleaner-burning coal is better than dirtier-burning coal, and it would be a boon to this region. But it may not be the best use of $2 billion. Alternative energy research, which would be cut in the current budget proposal, might more effectively use additional money to help make clean energy available for a mass market. And, despite the leniency proposed by Mr. Cheney, under no circumstances should the government allow existing coal-fed power plants to escape their requirements to meet clean air standards that have been set. Soot and smog and acid rain, which lead to premature deaths and diminished lives, are too high a price to pay for King Coal. Nuclear energy also would get a big boost in the Bush plan. There is no doubt that it is a cheaper and cleaner source of energy, or that safety procedures have improved since the Three Mile Island crisis in 1979. But a consensus has not developed around a way to dispose permanently of radioactive waste generated by the process. Until such a solution is identified, nuclear power will not play a significantly larger role in meeting the nation's energy needs. While many of the details of the proposal are troubling, its biggest problem is one of emphasis and balance. Conservation alone is not the solution. More refineries, pipelines and power plants must be - and are being - brought on line to meet increased demand. But by relegating conservation to a secondary role and harping on increased production, the administration not only has missed an opportunity, it also has offered a partial solution that is impossible to take seriously. post-gazette.com ***************************************************************** 17 Nuclear power's California comeback / SMALL GENERATORS: State's long-term pacts at risk Bernadette Tansey, Chronicle Staff Writer Wednesday, May 23, 2001 In an unexpected move, Washington is taking steps that could allow small power producers that supply one-third of the state's electricity to greatly increase prices and sell to other bidders. The result could be disastrous for the state, which has already had to pay $6 billion for electricity this year and is likely to face power shortages this summer. Federal regulators and congressional Republicans have acted to help hundreds of small generators -- including those that produce electricity from the sun, wind, steam and cogeneration plants -- break long-term contracts to sell to the state's utilities at relatively low prices. "The impact would be serious," said Steve Maviglio, spokesman for Gov. Gray Davis. "It could mean millions more in costs for California ratepayers." As much as the state has paid since it began buying electricity for the debt-ridden utilities in January, the effect has been cushioned by the small generators. If the state had to replace their electricity on the open market, its costs could double this summer to $4 billion a month, said Fred Pickel, an analyst who consults for the small generators. About 50 of the state's 680 small generators have gone to court in hopes of escaping their contracts, and others are expected to follow. They say the state left them dangling as Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and Southern California Edison racked up $1.5 billion in debt to them starting last winter. The generators were further angered in March when the state Public Utilities Commission reduced the rate they could be paid under their contracts with the utilities. Saying they would be operating at a loss, some have shut down -- helping to set in motion rolling blackouts this spring. "There should have been a way to get money to these people," Pickel said. REGULATORS LEAVE IT TO COURTS Last week, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission made it clear that it will do nothing to stand in the power companies' way if a judge lets them out of their deals with the utilities. The commission declined to give small suppliers the blanket exit they sought from their contracts. But commissioners said they would revisit the issue for generators that have not been paid on their back bills and cannot find relief in court. The commission allowed the plants to sell any power they can muster above the requirements of their utility contracts into the free market. In addition, commissioners ordered the utilities to provide the grid connections for those sales -- removing a major procedural hurdle. The commission said the idea was to let small generators "sell the maximum amount of power they are capable of producing to help address the critical need for power in California." "It's a major decision," said Calpine Corp. executive Joe Ronan. "We're headed into a summer of blackouts, and we have power offline that has no reason to be offline." Davis, already annoyed that the commission has done nothing to limit wholesale prices for power in California, called the ruling a "classic bait and switch" that interferes with state attempts to get small suppliers to stick with their contracts. "They appeared to respond to my urgent request not to release the (small generators) from their long-term contracts," Davis said. "However, they went on to order government agencies to facilitate and expedite the sale of their power on the outrageously expensive spot market if a court releases (the suppliers) from their contracts." BILL WOULD MAKE ESCAPE EASIER The generators are also finding a sympathetic ear with congressional Republicans. A bill sponsored by GOP Rep. Joe Barton of Texas would let small power plants out of their contracts if the utilities miss any more payments. Edison spokesman Les Starck said the current version of the bill is better for the state than the one originally proposed -- which would have freed any small generator from its contract if the utility had not yet paid its back debt. But opponents say the bill could give suppliers grounds to escape their contracts if the payment rate is in dispute. And rates -- both past rates that make up the utilities' debts, and future rates -- are the subject of Davis' negotiations with the small generators. PG and Edison accuse the small plants of exaggerating their financial woes so they can escape into the spot market and grab a share of the astronomical power costs plaguing California. "Do they want to be part of the solution in California, or join the ranks of those that want to profit from its problems?" said PG spokesman John Nelson. Nelson scoffs at industry advocates who characterize the generators as struggling independent "green" power plants running mainly on renewable energy sources such as solar and wind. SMALL NATURE A RUSE? Almost two-thirds are natural gas-fired plants. Many are co-owned by industry giants such as Calpine and El Paso Corp. that are reaping record profits in California, PG contends. El Paso is parrying assertions by Edison and PG that it caused increases in the price of natural gas and electricity by restricting competition on an El Paso subsidiary's gas pipeline. Concerns that El Paso was manipulating the price for natural gas -- a key number in the compensation formula for the small suppliers -- led state regulators to change the formula in March. El Paso affiliate CalEnergy is one of a handful of small generators to win a court ruling allowing it to escape from its utility contract. Power that the geothermal plants were providing Edison for less than $200 per megawatt hour before the March 22 court order was sold the next day in the open market, where electricity was going for as much as $500 a megawatt hour. To head off an exodus of other firms, Davis intensified negotiations with the small suppliers last week. But recent actions in Washington give the generators incentives to hold out for a court victory giving them a pass into the spot market, Maviglio said. Even if Davis reaches an agreement, the plan would address only the problems of Edison's suppliers, Maviglio said. The state can't do anything about PG's 300 small generators because of the utility's bankruptcy filing. Bankruptcy Judge Dennis Montali said last week that he was reluctant to let small suppliers out of their contracts to sell on the open market at "potentially extreme prices." "The cure may be worse than the disease," Montali said. *E-mail Bernadette Tansey at btansey@sfchronicle.com.* ©2001 San Francisco Chronicle   Page A - 1 ***************************************************************** 18 Cheney describes nuclear answer *Published Wednesday, May 23, 2001, in the Contra Costa Newspapers * + The administration will support building reactors quickly to boost the power supply, he tells industry representatives By Lara Jakes HEARST NEWSPAPERS WASHINGTON -- Vice President Dick Cheney told representatives of the nuclear power industry Tuesday that the Bush administration would push for quick approval of permits for new nuclear reactors to ease the nation's energy woes. Doing so, Cheney said, is a necessary part of the administration's national policy plan to avoid future energy problems like the one in California. The state is wrestling with rolling electricity blackouts -- the result of a troubled energy deregulation plan during a period of growing power demand without a significant supply increase. The administration's plan, released last week, "provides reliable, affordable and environmentally sound policy," Cheney told a packed ballroom at the annual meeting of the Nuclear Energy Institute. "As part of that, obviously, we think we ought to involve nuclear energy. It's important that we focus on that in the future, just as we recognize that nuclear power is a very important part of our energy policy today in the United States." He estimated that one out of every five American households depends on electricity generated by nuclear plants. But Cheney conceded that the White House has yet to identify safe sites for radioactive waste generated by nuclear power, a sticking point for congressional Democrats, environmentalists and some scientists who fear that increased nuclear use could lead to accidents. The administration's plan calls for a new look at using nuclear power to satisfy the nation's growing energy needs. Specifically, Cheney said, the recommendations include: + Encouraging the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission to expedite applications for new reactors and renew licenses for existing plants that "meet or exceed" safety standards. + Targeting more funding to better enforce safety regulations at nuclear generators. + Finding a repository for longterm nuclear waste disposal. + Encouraging reinvestment in the nuclear industry by renewing the Price-Anderson Act, which shields companies from unlimited liability in the event of an accident at a nuclear reactor. Without standards for reactor re-licensing and waste disposal in place, "eventually the contribution we can count on from the nuclear industry will decline," Cheney said. "If we reduce the amount of power generated from nuclear energy, we will in fact have to make that up from other sources. So it's vital that people remember that." But critics fear that safety controls may be shunted aside in the haste to provide nuclear energy. "The push for expedited licensing and a shorter review process may detract or pull the NRC's resources on safety," said David Lochbaum, the nuclear safety engineer for the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit environmental alliance. "And clearly, that could have downsides." Moreover, a spokeswoman for House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt, D-Mo., called the nuclear recommendations "premature." "We still have to make certain that all of the safety issues are taken care of," said Gephardt spokeswoman Kori Bernards. "Where are we going to put the waste? The states don't want it. So we still have to take care of those concerns before we invest in new plants." She also noted that the permitting process "is going to take years to develop -- so it won't do anything to help people now." There are 104 nuclear power plants operating in the United States, accounting for about 10 percent of the electricity produced in the nation, according to the Department of Energy. In 1975, there were more than 230 nuclear plants being planned, built or operating, but many were postponed or scrapped because of safety concerns and rising construction costs. Cheney used his 10-minute speech in front of the trade group to lash out at critics who charge the White House plan of all but ignoring other energy options, such as conservation or renewable resources, like solar or wind power. Cheney said more of the 105 White House recommendations are devoted to conservation and renewable energy remedies than on ways to boost power supply. "That's simply not true," Cheney said of the critics. "Anybody who says that clearly hasn't read the report." ***************************************************************** 19 New battle looms on nuclear power Bush energy goals put foes on defensive By David L. Greene Sun National Staff Originally published May 23, 2001 WASHINGTON - After the accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl heightened fears about the hazards of nuclear power and halted the building of new plants, the industry seemed to fade from attention in the United States. But now, for the first time in a quarter-century, the nuclear industry's outlook has brightened and its critics say they fear a resurgence. That is because nuclear energy suddenly has two major supporters - President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney - who say they are determined to make the industry a partner in confronting America's energy problems. Renewing a commitment to nuclear power as a way to meet rising U.S. demand for electricity is a centerpiece of the energy policy that Cheney helped craft and that Bush unveiled last week. The enthusiastic backing of the Bush administration for nuclear power has upset environmental groups, which have long called for the phase-out of nuclear energy in the United States and are now being forced into a defensive posture. They warn that generating electricity in fission reactors remains highly dangerous and that the disposal of radioactive waste is hazardous to the environment. The push for a nuclear revival could spark one of the critical battles over the Bush energy plan. But for those in the industry, who insist that nuclear power is safe, clean and affordable, there may be much to celebrate. Cheney dropped in yesterday on a conference of nuclear industry lobbyists to review the Bush administration's recommendations. He was greeted with cheers like a conquering hero. "American electricity is already being provided through the nuclear industry - efficiently, safely, with no discharge of greenhouse gases or emissions," the vice president said. "And we want, as a matter of national policy, to encourage continued advancements in this industry." Cheney noted that the nuclear industry provides electricity to one in five homes in America. With demand for energy rising, he added, the nation needs such a reliable energy producer to help churn out more electricity. The Bush energy policy calls on the federal government to speed up the relicensing process for nuclear reactors and to consider approving the construction of new reactors in the United States for the first time since 1978, a year before the near-meltdown at Three Mile Island near Harrisburg, Pa. The Bush administration has thrown its support behind creating a single repository for nuclear waste - a move backed by the industry. But the idea is opposed by many lawmakers, especially those in Nevada, where Yucca Mountain is under consideration as the nation's first underground nuclear waste dump. The White House policy also calls for re-examining a method of reprocessing nuclear waste for use as fuel, which cuts down on the waste generated but produces weapons-grade plutonium. Critics oppose the process out of concern that the relatively small amount of plutonium needed to make a bomb could wind up in the hands of terrorists or a rogue nation that wants to amass nuclear weapons. The Bush energy plan urges Congress to extend the Price-Anderson Act, which shields nuclear plant owners from unlimited liability in the event of a catastrophic accident. The measure is scheduled to expire next year. Joe Colvin, president of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's lobbying arm, called Cheney's brief remarks yesterday "an exhilarating rallying point." "We applaud the leadership that President Bush and Vice President Cheney are providing in recognizing that nuclear power is an indispensable component of our energy mix," Colvin said. The nuclear power industry gave more than $13.8 million to federal candidates and committees in the 2000 election cycle, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. More than two-thirds of that money went to Republicans. Individuals and organizations associated with the nuclear industry contributed more than $290,000 to Bush's presidential campaign, the center said. Opponents argue that Bush and Cheney are portraying the industry as safer than it is. While steps have been taken to prevent accidents and dispose of nuclear waste less hazardously, they note that even minor accidents or low exposures to waste can be deadly. The Chernobyl accident in Ukraine in 1986 rendered the surrounding area uninhabitable. But critics are facing a public that seems to be growing less fearful of nuclear power - leaving an opportunity for the White House to back the industry and making it harder for opponents to generate momentum. For months, Republican pollsters have said that the Bush administration would be safe in proceeding with its plans to back nuclear power. In a recent Gallup poll, 49 percent of those surveyed said "nuclear power is necessary to help solve the country's current energy problems" while 46 percent said "the dangers of nuclear power are too great." "People may be less concerned, but the issue of new nuclear power plants hasn't been at the fore for a long time," said Ann Mesnikoff of the Sierra Club's Global Warming and Energy Program. Mesnikoff said nuclear energy "is expensive, it generates nuclear waste and it's dangerous." Industry representatives say their comeback was beginning even before Bush took office and that they were not dependent on any candidate winning. For example, Calvert Cliffs, a nuclear power facility that operates two reactors on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay, in Calvert County, had its operating licenses renewed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last year. It was the first renewal granted for any U.S. nuclear facility since 1978 and was a breakthrough step for the industry. Over the next five years, 23 nuclear facilities hope to have their licenses renewed. There are now 103 reactors operating in the country, and the White House has suggested that a good first step would be to double the number of reactors at some already licensed nuclear power plants. That strategy would avoid the protracted environmental reviews and local protests that usually complicate the process of approving new reactor sites. Steve Kerekes, a spokesman for the National Energy Institute, suggested that the industry is regaining momentum because the public is becoming concerned about energy shortfalls and sees nuclear power as a clean alternative to fossil fuels such as coal. "What's taking place in the energy world is something either George Bush or Al Gore would have been confronted with," Kerekes said. But under the Clinton administration, environmental groups, which support conservation and an emphasis on "renewable" forms of energy such as solar and wind power, seemed to have the ear of the White House more than they do now. These days, the vice president can be found at an event with people such as Anne Lauvergeon, chief executive of Cogema, a European nuclear processing company. "Wind energy has become very popular because it doesn't have any effect on the environment," Lauvergeon said. "But wind energy is five times more expensive than nuclear energy." Lauvergeon said White House support for nuclear power has sent the message that the industry is due for a comeback. "The plan announced by President Bush will have an effect ... in countries worldwide," she said. *Copyright © 2001, The Baltimore Sun* ***************************************************************** 20 Nuclear Power Gains in Status After Lobbying May 23, 2001 By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE Nuclear Energy Industry Reclaims Spotlight (May 20, 2001) [W] ASHINGTON, May 22 — As the White House was putting together the energy plan that President Bush released last week, there had been almost no talk of nuclear power as a component of the nation's energy strategy. The nuclear industry thought this was a glaring omission, and a handful of top nuclear industry officials decided they needed to take their case to the administration. In mid-March, a cadre of seven nuclear power executives sought and won an hourlong meeting in the White House with Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's top political adviser. Also attending were Lawrence B. Lindsey, the president's top economic adviser, Andrew Lundquist, the executive director of Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force, and others involved in devising the energy plan. "We said, Look, we are an important player on this energy team and here are our vital statistics, and we think that you should start talking about nuclear when you talk about increasing the nation's supply," Christian H. Poindexter, chairman of the Constellation Energy Group, recalled today. And then a surprising thing happened. "It was shortly after that, as a matter of fact I think the next night, when the vice president was being interviewed on television, he began to talk about nuclear power for the first time," Mr. Poindexter said. Mr. Cheney first discussed nuclear power as an alternative to dirtier fossil fuels in a March 21 interview on CNBC. "If you want to do something about carbon dioxide emissions," he said, "then you ought to build nuclear power plants because they don't emit any carbon dioxide, they don't emit greenhouse gases." Mr. Cheney had missed the meeting with nuclear executives because he was on Capitol Hill, talking to members of Congress who themselves were pushing nuclear energy. In a quick chain reaction, Mr. Cheney put the long-maligned nuclear power industry back on the political map. In the energy plan released last week, the administration breathed new life into the industry, declaring nuclear technology, which provides 20 percent of the nation's electricity, much safer than it was 20 years ago. Today, Mr. Cheney appeared before 350 nuclear industry executives meeting in Washington — 100 more than showed up at last year's annual meeting of the Nuclear Energy Institute — and told them the administration wanted to encourage the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to expedite applications for new reactors, relicense existing plants and "increase the resources devoted to safety and enforcement as we prepare to increase nuclear generating capacity in the future." He said the administration also wanted to renew the Price-Anderson Act, which limits nuclear plant operators' liability in case of an accident. Mr. Poindexter is still incredulous. "In my wildest dreams, when I was over at the White House in March, I couldn't imagine them getting so behind us," he said. He was skeptical for good reason. Few industries have enjoyed the kind of renaissance that nuclear power may be poised to undergo. Accidents at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania and Chernobyl in Ukraine seemed to seal the industry's fate as too dangerous, too uncontrollable and too expensive to win back a frightened public or secure the financial backing of Wall Street. The last nuclear power plant to enter operation was ordered in 1973. There still is no solution to the vexing problem of nuclear waste storage. And while recent polling shows that Americans more lopsidedly oppose dirtier fossil fuels than they oppose nuclear power, they still do not want to live near nuclear power plants. For those wary of a nuclear revival, these problems are no less real today than they were two decades ago. "The Bush administration should at most be looking to proceed with what the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was planning — an orderly phase-out of existing power plants," said Paul L. Leventhal, president of the Nuclear Control Institute and co- director of the Senate investigation into the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island. "Instead, they're talking about a new rebirth, and it frankly just doesn't make sense." The Union of Concerned Scientists, using data from the industry itself, says that aging plants have experienced eight forced shutdowns in the last 16 months. And Mr. Leventhal said that replacing coal with nuclear power would not appreciably diminish global warming because most of the pollutants that cause global warming come from cars and trucks. Another problem, and one that Mr. Cheney fully acknowledges, is the lack of a national repository for the storage of nuclear waste. In his speech today, the vice president warned that the lack of a storage site could be a deal killer. Without a site, he said, "eventually the contribution we can count on from the nuclear industry will, in fact, decline." The storage problem will not be solved at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, if Nevada politicians and the gambling industry have anything to say about it. Senators Harry Reid, a Democrat, and John Ensign, a Republican, have made opposition to nuclear waste dumping in their state their priority. "Until they get the waste problem solved," Mr. Reid said, "nothing's going to happen on nuclear power." Peter Bradford, a former member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, who now teaches energy policy at Yale, said that apart from the safety issues, nuclear power was economically problematic. "The types of long-term investment necessary to sustain nuclear energy are going to prove very hard to find in this kind of volatile marketplace," Mr. Bradford said. Still, there are cheerleaders. One is Representative Billy Tauzin, the Louisiana Republican who heads the Energy and Commerce Committee. He spoke today at the Nuclear Energy Institute's annual meeting and summed up the surprise that others feel at the recent turn of events. "As we gather here in Washington," Mr. Tauzin said, "who would have thunk that we'd be discussing the possibility of nuclear construction in this country?" The New York Times Newspaper. ***************************************************************** 21 Poll: 59% favor nuclear power San Jose Mercury News Wednesday May 23 09:20 AM EDT *By Dion Nissenbaum, Mercury News Sacramento Bureau* The threat of rising power bills has Californians rethinking whether to put the state's environment ahead of its power needs: Most now want to build nuclear plants and dilute anti-pollution laws to get aging plants back on line. A Field Poll released today shows support for nuclear power in California at its highest point since the late 1970s, before the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania shook the nation's faith in nuclear plants. Nearly six in 10 residents said California should build more nuclear plants. ``If California is this way, it has to be good news for the nuclear power industry -- major good news,'' said Mark DiCamillo, director of the non-partisan Field Institute. Copyright © 2001 Yahoo!, and . All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 22 For Cheney, a Positive Reaction (washingtonpost.com) Nuclear Power Convention Applauds Energy Program *By Mike Allen* Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, May 23, 2001; Page A02 The nuclear power convention sported the bold slogan "A Flourishing Renaissance," and Vice President Cheney went before the reactor executives yesterday to accept their adulation and underline the administration's enthusiasm for nuclear power. The energy policy President Bush released last week includes promises to speed up relicensing for safe and efficient nuclear reactors and take a number of other steps to encourage production of nuclear power. The report refers to it as a "clean and unlimited source of energy." Cheney was the policy's architect, and was greeted by two standing ovations from the crowd of 375 at the Nuclear Energy Assembly. The annual conference is sponsored at a Washington hotel by the industry's major trade group, the Nuclear Energy Institute. Cheney said the nuclear industry is allowing electricity to be generated "efficiently, safely, with no discharge of the greenhouse gases or emissions." "We want, as a matter of national policy, to encourage continued advancements in this industry -- improved safety and efficiency in nuclear plants, safe disposal of nuclear waste and perhaps even technology that reduces the amount of toxicity of waste going forward," he said. The vice president said Bush "recognizes that these are difficult and challenging issues, and there's been plenty of controversy over the years." The nuclear executives seemed in a buoyant mood, after enduring 20 years of mainly hostile public attention. Conference organizers handed out Super Balls that glow in the dark. The warm-up speaker for Cheney, Thomas J. Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said, "Up until the last few months, it was not polite to talk about nuclear energy." Cheney and his task force changed all that. John R. McGaha, president of Entergy Operations Inc., which operates five nuclear plants in the Southeast, said Bush and Cheney have shown themselves to be "leaders, not politicians." Perhaps chastened by the response to remarks last month that were widely seen as being dismissive of conservation, Cheney said more of the recommendations from Bush's energy task force "are devoted to conservation and renewables than are devoted to increased supplies." Cheney asked the executives to support the administration's "reasonable policies" on energy. "There's a lot of talk from some of our critics that somehow it's only focused, for example, on additional supplies of energy -- that we didn't look adequately at conservation or renewables," he said. "That's simply not true. I would say anybody who says that hasn't read the report." However, Cheney did not back away from the administration's contention that massive new production infrastructure should be built. He said Bush's policy assumes "very significant" savings from conservation and increased use of renewable energy sources such as sun and wind, but said they will not be enough to meet the nation's energy needs. "That means," Cheney said, "it's going to be coal-fired, it's going to be gas-fired or it's going to come from nuclear power." © 2001 The Washington Post Company ***************************************************************** 23 Cheney delights nuclear faithful Chicago Tribune | Nation World -- May 23, 2001 Industry leaders like priorities of Bush energy plan By Mike Allen, The Washington Post. The New York Times News Service contributed to this report. * * WASHINGTON -- The nuclear power convention sported the bold slogan "A Flourishing Renaissance," and Vice President Dick Cheney went before the reactor executives Tuesday to accept their adulation and underline the administration's enthusiasm for nuclear power. The energy policy President Bush released last week includes promises to speed up relicensing for safe and efficient nuclear reactors and take other steps to encourage production of nuclear power, which the report referred to as a "clean and unlimited source of energy." Cheney, the policy's architect, was greeted by two standing ovations from the crowd of 375 at the Nuclear Energy Assembly, an annual conference sponsored by the Nuclear Energy Institute, a major trade group. Cheney said the nuclear industry is allowing electricity to be generated "efficiently, safely, with no discharge of the greenhouse gases or emissions." "Obviously, we think we ought to involve nuclear energy," Cheney said about the administration's recent report. "It's important that we focus on that in the future, just as we recognize that nuclear power is a very important part of our energy policy today in the United States." `Challenging issues' He estimated that one out of every five American households depends on electricity generated by nuclear plants. "We want to, as a matter of national policy, to encourage continued advancements in this industry: improved safety and efficiency in nuclear plants, safe disposal of nuclear waste, and perhaps even technology that reduces the amount of toxicity of waste going forward," he said. The vice president said Bush "recognizes that these are difficult and challenging issues, and there's been plenty of controversy over the years." The nuclear executives seemed in a buoyant mood, after enduring 20 years of mainly hostile public attention. Joe Colvin, the institute's president, drew laughs when he introduced a speaker by saying she "began her career in the steel business, and I'm sure she's very happy to be in the nuclear industry today." The warm-up speaker for Cheney, Thomas Donohue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said, "Up until the last few months, it was not polite to talk about nuclear energy." Cheney and his task force changed all that. John McGaha, president of Entergy Operations Inc., which operates five nuclear plans in the Southeast, said Bush and Cheney have shown themselves to be "leaders, not politicians." Perhaps chastened by the response to remarks last month that were widely seen as dismissive of conservation, Cheney said more of the recommendations from Bush's energy task force "are devoted to conservation and renewables than are devoted to increased supplies." Cheney asked the executives for their support for the administration's "reasonable policies" on energy. "There's a lot of talk from some of our critics that somehow it's only focused, for example, on additional supplies of energy--that we didn't look adequately at conservation or renewables," he said. "That's simply not true. I would say anybody who says that hasn't read the report." Waste sites unidentified But Cheney conceded that the White House has yet to identify safe sites for radioactive waste generated by nuclear power, a sticking point for congressional Democrats, environmentalists and some scientists who fear that increased nuclear use could lead to accidents. Some critics fear that safety controls may be shunted aside in the haste to provide nuclear energy. "The push for expedited licensing and a shorter review process may detract or pull the [Nuclear Regulatory Commission's] resources on safety," said David Lochbaum, the nuclear safety engineer for the Union of Concerned Scientists, a non-profit environmental alliance. Moreover, a spokeswoman for House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-Mo.) called the nuclear recommendations "premature." "We still have to make certain that all of the safety issues are taken care of," said Kori Bernards. "Where are we going to put the waste? The states don't want it. So we still have to take care of those concerns before we invest in new plants." She also noted that the permitting process "is going to take years to develop--so it won't do anything to help people now." However, Cheney did not back away from the administration's contention that massive new production infrastructure should be built. He said Bush's policy assumes "very significant" savings from conservation and increased use of renewable energy sources, but said they will not be enough to meet the nation's energy needs. "That means," Cheney said, "it's going to be coal-fired, it's going to be gas-fired or it's going to come from nuclear power." ***************************************************************** 24 REID ANNOUNCES LEGISLATION TO PERMANENTLY FUND PILT PROGRAM [Sen. Reid Press Release] May 17, 2001 WASHINGTON, D.C. – NevadaSenator Harry Reidannounced today that he will cosponsor legislation to permanently fund the PILT, Payment-In-Lieu-of-Taxes, program which compensates counties for non-taxable Federal lands within their boundaries. Currently, funding for the program must be appropriated every year in the Interior Appropriations bill. "PILT funds allow Nevada's smaller communities to provide vital services such as firefighting and police protection, construction of public schools and roads and search-and-rescue operations," Senator Reid said. "These PILT payments are vital to ensuring Nevada's communities are not shortchanged." PILT allocations are administered by the BLMusing a formula which includes state population and the amount of Federal land in each eligible county. The PILT Funding Act, S. 454, would allow for permanent funding from general Treasury revenue beginning with FY 2002. "Local governments will no longer have to wait every year for the appropriations process to be completed," Reid added. "By making these funds available on a permanent distribution basis, the money these communities need will be more readily and regularly available." In FY 2000 Nevada counties received a total of $7.6 million, and the total allocation for FY 1999 $7.2 million. ***************************************************************** 25 Congress, Leaders Discuss Energy Story Filed: Tuesday, May 22, 2001 5:12 PM EDT WASHINGTON (AP) -- House Republicans looking for quick ways to help California were told by industry leaders Tuesday that significantly boosting energy supplies from public lands would take at least five years. At Congress' first hearing on the energy plan President Bush revealed last week, members of a House Resources subcommittee repeatedly questioned witnesses on what could be done to help this summer. Not much, they were told. ``It will take time for any realistic future energy policy to achieve results. There is no simple solution,'' said Earl Sims, a Houston oil consultant representing the Independent Petroleum Association of America. ``Without policy changes, many of which can be initiated by Congress, the nation may not be able to meet its needs.'' Tom Fry, president of the National Ocean Industries Association, which represents oil and other offshore industries, echoed the sentiment. ``When I discuss short-term,'' he said, ``I am thinking in terms of years as opposed to weeks. I have no immediate answers to California's quandaries.'' The industry leaders' recommendations, most of them in Bush's plan and most requiring action by Congress, include opening to drilling a section of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, reducing federal royalties on oil and gas production from federal lands and rescinding former President Clinton's ban on road-building in one-third of the national forests. Americans use about 19 million barrels of oil and 6 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day -- a point emphasized by Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., the subcommittee chairman. ``Let's be realistic: Renewables can provide but a tiny fraction of our needs anytime soon,'' he said. ``By necessity, then, we must rely upon fossil fuels or nuclear power to alleviate power shortages.'' Even before the hearing, the energy and mineral resources subcommittee's Republican staff had concluded in a memo to panel members there were few quick fixes for boosting supplies. ``Most of the solutions for increasing energy supplies will require five years or more,'' staff director Bill Condit and aide John Rishel wrote. ``Few short-term solutions for increasing energy supplies from federal lands have been identified.'' On the Net: House Resources: http://resourcescommittee.house.gov *Copyright © 2001 Associated Press Information Services, all ***************************************************************** 26 Lehrer: NUCLEAR POWER Online NewsHour: Nuclear Power -- May 22, 2001 [a NewsHour with Jim Lehrer Transcript] May 22, 2001 The Bush energy plan calls for a reexamination of nuclear power. Experts debate President Bush's plans for the controversial energy source. MARGARET WARNER: America embraced nuclear power at the dawn of the post-war atomic age, but this source of energy, which President Bush now wants to expand, has had a troubled history. In 1957, the first large-scale plant generating energy from splitting the atom went on line in Shipping Port, Pennsylvania. Though they were costly to build, more nuclear facilities followed in the 1960s and early '70s. But in 1979, disaster struck. A core meltdown at the Three Mile Island nuclear plant in Pennsylvania, forced the evacuation of 140,000 people, and badly tarnished nuclear power's image. The public backlash, and tougher safety regulations and licensing procedures imposed in the wake of Three Mile Island, hobbled the industry further. In 1986, its image suffered another blow when an explosion at the Chernobyl plant in the then-Soviet Union, leaked radioactive material into the atmosphere over Europe. The result: The last new nuclear plant was ordered in the United States in 1978. Still, there are 103 nuclear reactors operating today, the majority of them in the eastern half of the country. Combined, they provide about 20% of America's electricity, second only to coal, and ahead of natural gas. Today, the controversy about those plants centers on what to do with the used, highly radioactive, nuclear waste they generate. Some 400 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel is currently being stored at the individual plants. The federal government, which by law has responsibility for this waste, has been fighting to build a permanent underground storage facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada -- despite opposition from environmental and safety critics. Now President Bush wants to expand nuclear energy's role. PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: France, our friend and ally, gets 80 percent of its electricity from nuclear power. 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. (Applause) MARGARET WARNER: The president's plan calls on the federal government to: expedite approval of new nuclear reactors, relicense existing nuclear plants, let those existing facilities increase their output, provide a permanent deep geologic repository for nuclear waste, extend the law known as the Price Anderson Act limiting nuclear plant liability for accidents, and renew research and development into the reprocessing of used nuclear fuel, a technology that reduces the volume of waste, while generating a fuel source that can be reused. Speaking to the Nuclear Energy Institute in Washington today, Vice President Cheney said failing to act on the recommendations would prove costly. DICK CHENEY: If we fail to do an effective job of dealing with the re- licensing questions and the waste disposal questions with respect to nuclear energy, that eventually the contribution we can count on from the nuclear industry will, in fact, decline. We can't keep those plants going without re-licensing and without dealing with these broader questions indefinitely into the future. And, of course, if we reduce the amount of power generated from nuclear energy, we will, in fact, have to make that up from other sources. So it's vital that people remember that. Weighing the benefits vs. the costs MARGARET WARNER: For more on the Bush proposals, we're joined by: Angelina Howard, executive Vice President of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the trade group of nuclear power producers; Oliver Kingsley, Vice-President of Exelon Corporation, the nation's largest nuclear power operator. He runs Exelon's nuclear division; Vijay Vaitheeswaran, the environment and energy correspondent for the Economist Magazine. He wrote this week's cover story and editorial on the President's nuclear proposals; and Daniel Hirsch, President of the Committee to Bridge the Gap, an organization that provides citizen groups with technical advice on nuclear energy issues. Welcome to you all. Ms. Howard, beginning with you -- given this troubled history which we have just laid out, why should America increase its reliance on nuclear power? [Angelina Howard] ANGELINA HOWARD: Because today nuclear energy represents 20% of our electricity. It does so economically safely and without emitting greenhouse gases and it needs to be part of future of the our energy mix. MARGARET WARNER: Now, when you say safely, are they safer than used to be? ANGELINA HOWARD: The operating history of the nuclear industry is very safe, and they have continued to show outstanding performance in both their safety as well as reliability of performance. MARGARET WARNER: Daniel Hirsch, your view of the president's proposals? DANIEL HIRSCH: I was shocked. I found that one of the most extreme statements I have heard on nuclear energy -- nuclear is among the most dangerous energies on Earth. The amount of radioactivity in a reactor core is so large that if there were an accident, it could cause hundreds of thousands of casualties. The wastes are so dangerous that they'll be dangerous for half a million years and each reactor produces 10 tons of plutonium over its lifetime when it takes over a few pounds to make a nuclear weapon. In each of those areas the president's proposals would make matters worse. [Daniel Hirsch] He wants to relicense aging reactors so that they would operate 60 years — way beyond their designed safety life. I don't know anyone that would get on a airplane that was built in 1941 and even more so true for reactors. He wants to reprocess and take plutonium out of the spent fuel and create a plutonium economy which could greatly increase the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation, and they want to relax the standard for disposing of the high level waste because they know that the facility isn't safe enough to get licensed so they want to lower the bar to have a chance to be able to license it and that means tens of thousands of generations of people coming down with cancer from the leaking radioactive waste. Safety issues MARGARET WARNER: All right. Oliver Kingsley, you're shaking your head. Respond on this safety question. OLIVER KINGSLEY: These plants are absolutely safe; they are much safer than they were when we had Three Mile Island. We have extremely well trained people; we have much better procedures for diagnosing. The number of events in the plants is down. MARGARET WARNER: By events...? [Oliver Kingsley] OLIVER KINGSLEY: By thousands -- where we would have some type of minor accident -- those are down by the order of ten to three, so these plants are absolutely safe. We have got all of the waste matters totally contained there. And nuclear power is a good deal for the United States. We need definitely need to relicense the plants. What are with going to do? 20% of the power is coming; we have to go forward. MARGARET WARNER: All right. Now, Mr. Hirsch said that basically his view is the fact they are so old and getting older makes them unsafe as he said you wouldn't get in an airplane made in 1941. What's your answer to that? DANIEL HIRSCH: Absolutely not. We maintain a living power plant; we do all types of checks on he reactor vessels, on the cabling; we change that out if we need to. So we maintain these plants in top like condition; we cut no corners at all with these plants. These plants are absolutely safe. MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Hirsch, back to you for a quick reply on that. DANIEL HIRSCH: Well, the public should understand what happens when you reradiate a nuclear reactor vessel over long periods of time, the reactor vessel itself becomes brittle, so that in the case of an accident and you have to use the emergency cooling system, the entire reactive vessel can shatter the way glass would in hot water. These reactors are not safe enough to even operate for their normal life; extending them 60 years seem to me quite crazy. I would ask one question, though: If these things are so safe, why is the industry asking for protection that no other industry in the United States has -- and that is immunization from liability. If the industry really believes these things are so safe, why is it removing almost all public scrutiny in the licensing process? MARGARET WARNER: All right. Let me get Ms. Howard to answer that, and then I want to get to our other guests. ANGELINA HOWARD: From the liability standpoint, the Price Anderson Act provides to the American public no fault insurance and it's paid for by the utilities; they buy insurance from the public insurance pools and then the Act would allow for individual assessments per reactor if there was an accident. But it provides for no fault -- there would be no litigation that would go through for years in the event of an event. It would actually pay the American people and the utilities pay for that. MARGARET WARNER: All right. Mr. Vaitheeswaran, your view on this safety issue. And I know your editorial touches on different ones but let's stay with safety for a minute. VIJAY VAITHEESWARAN: Sure. There is two components to safety, I think. We need to make very clear the distinction between running existing nuclear plants and building new ones. In my view the nuclear industry and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has learned a great deal about how to run nuclear power plants safely. It's not like in the early days around the time of the Three Mile Island accident. A number of nuclear power plants came on that had generic technical problems and we saw a number of issues that were not actually related to regulatory problems but rather because this was an immature technology. I think it's fair to say that the industry has earned a good track record and those operators that run nuclear plants well probably should be relicensed; it makes sense. In fact, it would be foolish to shut them down in my view given a good safety track record. And we're seeing trends in industry like consolidation amongst nuclear operators that means they learn best practice. They get economies of scale; they know how to run just like a proper business at last. That's quite different, however, from saying we should build new nuclear power plants; and that's where I think the hurdle has to be much higher for this particular problem. That is the waste issue, which is also related to safety of course. The stuff is lethal for 100,000 years or more. We have not satisfactorily addressed the nuclear waste problem. Disposing of nuclear waste MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Kingsley, how does the Bush plan -- describe for us in just layman's terms how the Bush plan approaches this waste disposal issue. OLIVER KINGSLEY: Well, it definitely encourages a favorable decision on the site in the Nevada-Yucca Mountain. It proposes technology to look at possibly reprocessing the fuel, which we would study. That was the original plan. MARGARET WARNER: And that separates it into two different components. OLIVER KINGSLEY: Yes, it separates it out, which was the original plan in the late 1970s. So we feel that we will be table to license Yucca Mountain. We will be able to store the fuel there, and that President Bush, once receives the recommendations from the Department of Energy, will proceed forward with a favorable recommendation and will be able to move the waste there where it should be. MARGARET WARNER: And you think that America should feel confident that the waste that remains is contained? [Oliver Kingsley] OLIVER KINGSLEY: Yes. But right now today we have this waste very safely stored at our sites. We have the spent fuel pools. They're seismically qualified; they're very well protected. When we move it into casts, it is also very well protected. You can't hardly blows these casts up any way and they'll take any type of shock. MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Hirsch - oh, I'm sorry --I didn't mean to cut you off. OLIVER KINGSLEY: So we treat this very, very seriously to handle this fuel the right way so there is no danger to the general public. MARGARET WARNER: All right. Mr. Hirsch, a brief reply on just the waste issue and the Bush plan in particular, how it addresses it. DANIEL HIRSCH: Well, we have heard these promises from the industry over and over again; they said you could dump the radioactive waste in the ocean, that it wouldn't get out of the barrels, but it turned out the barrels imploded before reaching the bottom. They said you could dispose of much of this waste by burying it in the ground and it wouldn't migrate for 10,000 years and all six of the low level waste dumps in the country leaked within a few - MARGARET WARNER: But let's talk abut the Bush plan. DANIEL HIRSCH: Under the Bush proposal, he's sending a very clear signal that this facility - Yucca Mountain -- can't meet safety standards and he's directing the government to relax those standards that would permit doses to maximally expose a person ten thousand times higher than the maximum does that is permitted for someone to be able to - MARGARET WARNER: All right - DANIEL HIRSCH: -- nuclear power plant. MARGARET WARNER: Ms. Howard, your shaking your head. [Howard] ANGELINA HOWARD: The Bush proposal suggests that we will study Yucca Mountain and as the scientific studies, which have been studied over there for over a decade, come in, that we base it on the scientific evidence. The National Academy of Sciences and others made the same recommendations and the decision will be based on sound science. MARGARET WARNER: All right. Mr. Vaitheeswaran, I do want to turn to the other non-safety issues that you raised in your editorial and have been raised. Perhaps... VIJAY VAITHEESWARAN: If I could jump in and add a further thought on the waste issue. If we could actually take the bigger picture here, it seems to me even if you take the optimistic case that something like Yucca Mountain, geological disposal, which is the industry's favorite approach, were able to build within ten years, let's say, which is again very optimistic -- all the politics goes right and the site is built -- to me the broader point is that is not final solution. The brightest minds that we have worked on this in the last 50 years -- the best idea that the nuclear industry come up with is to dig a big hole in the ground and stick the stuff in there and pray our grandchildren will come up with a way to solve the problem. In my view, that's hardly an elegant and certainly not a final solution. What's required before any new plants are built is much more intensive R&D effort funded by the industry not government to help address this problem and on the contrary what we're finding is the brightest minds in engineering are not going into nuclear engineering and the industry itself has admitted there is an aging work force in the scientific work force. The economic arguments MARGARET WARNER: Now, let me ask you to go on now to the other issues and respond to the two main argument the proponents make, which is we have to consider alternatives. That's what this is about. Nuclear has two big advantages over fossil fuels one cleaner doesn't pollute and two supply isn't a problem - it's not a supply question so that the price, whatever it is, is much more stable. Just your critique - your analysis of the non-safety issues in terms of viability at this of nuclear energy. VIJAY VAITHEESWARAN: They really point to the economics of nuclear power, the new economics of new nuclear plants as it's been argued. I think that the first point to make is you need to consider the new dimension in electricity markets around the world is the advance of deregulation and liberalization of markets. Now, set aside California. California is a particular example that thankfully nowhere else in the world has followed the California model of "deregulation." It really is not deregulation. But if you enter a world ten years 15, 20 years down the road when nuclear plants come on line if that happens you're talking about competing in an open marketplace with all sorts of electricity, with competing forms of generation. If the private sector wants to build new nuclear plants without subsidies, without government help in such a marketplace, I say more power to them. But I think what you'll find if you look a very close look at the sorts of structures that there are in most developed countries -- whether it's help with the Price Anderson Act, which is limiting liabilities, whether it's help with government R&D in terms of new designs, if you look at other forms of help with export credit for example, selling nuclear power plants to developing countries, nuclear power gets unfair advantages that other sorts of power sources don't. If you strip those out -- you ask if the economics really make sense, I would suspect that they don't. MARGARET WARNER: Mr. Kingsley? OLIVER KINGSLEY: Nuclear power makes sense with the plants we have now our advance reactors make sense. We cannot depend totally on natural gas. We have made those mistakes in the late 60s and early 70s. We cannot save our way - conservation -- we're a nation of growth and we're going to have to have more electrical energy. We could have California in other parts of country too. MARGARET WARNER: Quick question -- respond to the previous guest who said your industry really couldn't survive without a lot of subsidiaries. OLIVER KINGSLEY: We don't get a lot of subsidiaries. We pay a large amount of tax; we get hardly any. We got a few pollution credits when we built some of the plants, but that's it. MARGARET WARNER: Brief response Mr. Vijay Vaitheeswaran. VIJAY VAITHEESWARAN: Sure, the gentleman talked about it... I think it's pretty plain and one of other guests talked about it too. If you look at Price Anderson - if you look at R&D over the last 20 years - if you look at how much government R&D money has gone in real terms, in today's money, in the United States and in Europe and Japan to the various forms of energy, nuclear energy is probably more than half of that money. And today in this day and age for an industry as well capitalized and large as successful in a sense that it provides a fifth of America's power, for such a mature enterprise to continue to receive any government money at all in terms of subsidies to me is astonishing. MARGARET WARNER: All right. We'll have to leave it there, agree to disagree. Thank you all very much. Copyright © 2001 MacNeil-Lehrer Productions. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 27 Lehrer: Powering the Future Online NewsHour: Powering the Future -- May 18, 2001 [a NewsHour with Jim Lehrer Transcript] [Online NewsHour] [Online Focus] POWERING THE FUTURE May 18, 2001 Four governors offer their analysis of President Bush's new energy plan. MARGARET WARNER: Now, how the Bush proposal looks out in the states. For that, we turn to four governors: two Republicans, Tom Ridge of Pennsylvania, and Mike Leavitt of Utah; and two Democrats, John Kitzhaber of Oregon and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire. Welcome to you all. Governor Kitzhaber, how does the Bush energy proposal look from where you sit? Concerns for the western states GOV. JOHN KITZHABER: Well, it has one immediate shortcoming, and that's the fact that it doesn't deal with runaway wholesale electricity prices out here in the West today. And one of the premises of this energy policy is to ensure that all Americans can enjoy the American dream into the future. We're laying off 5,000 aluminum workers in Oregon and Washington today because of high energy prices, and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission could today institute cost plus pricing and moderate that. So I'm very disappointed that it doesn't deal with that. I have two concerns as a Western governor specifically with the plan; trying to jumpstart the nuclear power industry when we haven't yet resolved the issue of nuclear waste storage is very concerning to me. I can't imagine that that facility will be east of the Mississippi River, and I don't want the West to be used as a place where we deposit the nation's radioactive waste. In fact, we've got the Hanford plutonium plant that's been on the Columbia River since the Second World War and the federal government still hasn't cleaned that up, so that's a real concern. The final concern has to do really with the effort to speed up the re-licensing of hydroelectric facilities, and those facilities are an important part of our energy future, are the same facilities that have ground up and decimated runs of sand and steelhead throughout the Northwest. And the only hook states have to ensure that they operate in an environmentally sensitive fashion is through the re-licensing process, so we have some real concerns there with those two elements. MARGARET WARNER: All right. Governor Leavitt, how does it look to you in Utah? GOV. MIKE LEAVITT: If we had had this policy in place, we wouldn't be in the problem we are today. In the last eight years we've been without an energy policy. This calls for more production, conservation, doing it in a way that's environmentally responsible. I support the plan and I'm enthusiastic about working with the president to implement it. MARGARET WARNER: Well, what would it do for Utah? GOV. MIKE LEAVITT: Well, we are a storehouse of energy. It will allow us to produce more electric power not just for ourselves but for other parts of this region. No state is an island in this market. We are in it with all the Western states. We need to work together to assure that we not only have adequate production but we have the capacity to move electric generation around. As it is today, if we were to discover 15,000 megawatts that we didn't know existed, we wouldn't be able to get it to California. We wouldn't be able to get it within California because there's simply been inadequate production and inadequate new transmission. Concerns for the eastern states MARGARET WARNER: All right. Governor Ridge, what would it do for Pennsylvania? I know you support it; you were with the president all day today. But specifically for your state and your region… GOV. TOM RIDGE: Well, I think one of the reasons the president chose Pennsylvania is that we've done many of the things in Pennsylvania that mirrored his plan. We have a diversified base. We encouraged multiple sources of energy, hydroelectric nuclear fossil fuels; we have fuel cell technology companies coming in, others doing experimentation with alternative fuels. We were not the first state to deregulate electricity; however, we were the first state to do it correctly. And one of the fascinating things that I hear over the past couple of days about this debate, and I say with great respect to those who are opposing the president's initiative, but I hear that they're uncomfortable with nuclear energy; they don't want to build dams. They don't want to drill in the oceans or in ANWAR They really don't like to use fossil fuels or coal and yet they want more energy. I mean, at some point in time they have to put aside the partisanship that has just reared its ugly head so early in this very, very important debate and say that it's a tough issue, that we have to figure out ways to resolve an energy crisis that is in its natal stages today, but as the president has pointed out, ten, fifteen, twenty years down the road, when energy consumption increases 30 or 40 percent, we will not be able to deliver it. MARGARET WARNER: All right. Let me get to New Hampshire, Governor Shaheen, what would it do to or for New Hampshire, as you see it? GOV. JEANNE SHAHEEN: Well, I think it's important for us to have a national energy plan, but I worry that what Bush is proposing focuses too much on the solutions of the past -- drilling and fossil fuels -- and not enough on the new technologies that we really need to provide our energy solutions in the future. MARGARET WARNER: The report that was issued, along with his plan, I mean, the whole report, did say that New Hampshire was one of the states that could face blackouts this summer. I mean, talk about New Hampshire's particular situation and whether you think this plan helps address it. GOV. JEANNE SHAHEEN: Well, the fact is the report was inaccurate and the White House called to point out that they did make a mistake. New Hampshire and New England we feel confident have enough energy for this summer and you know, in New Hampshire and I think nationally, the issue shouldn't be about production versus the environment. The fact is we do need diversified sources of power, but we also need new technologies and we shouldn't reduce environmental regulations in order to have the energy that we need in the future. Here in New Hampshire, since I've been governor, we've licensed two new gas pipelines; we've licensed two new gas fired generation facilities over a thousand megawatts of power going on line next year, and we didn't reduce our environmental regulations at all in order to do that. MARGARET WARNER: All right. Governor Leavitt, let's turn to an issue that Governor Kitzhaber just raised, and that is the Bush administration's decision to try to ease and streamline regulations when it comes to approving new projects. In fact, he took a step that way today. Would that make a difference to Utah? GOV. MIKE LEAVITT: Well, it would make a difference to the entire West. The average power plant is seven to nine years in the licensing process. We simply can't wait that long. We can't shortcut the process, but we certainly can fast track; we can all -- have all federal agencies deal with it at the same time. We can have a system where states, local governments and the federal government all deal with the same issues at the same time. We have to move if we're to deal with the price issues because production ultimately -- more production ultimately is what will resolve the price dilemmas we face. MARGARET WARNER: Governor Kitzhaber? GOV. JOHN KITZHABER: Well, I don't think the issue is new hydroelectric facilities; the issue is re-licensing existing facilities, and although it takes several years to re-license them, they'll shut down during that period. We just went through a process with a Scottish power facility on the North Umpqua River, one of the best steelhead rivers in the nation, and we agreed through this re-licensing process to make significant environmental improvements in how those dams operate and continue to provide the energy. So I'm very concerned, if you remove that hook, and use the need to deal with -- with energy production as an excuse, a premise to cripple our ability to balance environmental concerns with energy production -- I just simply don't buy that. Streamlining and environmental concerns MARGARET WARNER: Governor Ridge, address that one issue. Will this streamlining -- could it make it harder to address environmental concerns? GOV. TOM RIDGE: Well, I think there are a lot of conclusions that have been reached by opponents of the energy plan without reading the plan carefully and letting the agencies follow the instructions of the president of the United States. And the president made it very clear yesterday -- he made it very, very clear today -- that one of his five major goals is to enhance the environment and the reason he selected a hydroelectric facility today was that there was some new technology put in there a couple of years ago that preserves a couple of prominent fish species that frequent the area and at the same time generates power, so I think when you prejudge what the administration is going to do, you're basically saying that the regulators are going to ignore the instructions from their president, who said very specifically a 21st century energy policy must enhance the environment at the same time find additional ways to increase energy supply, and I believe they'll follow his lead. MARGARET WARNER: Governor Shaheen, address that issue about the streamlining of approval, now, talking about the power plants in your own state but also in neighboring states. GOV. JEANNE SHAHEEN: Well, I'd like to pick up a little bit on what Governor Ridge said, because I agree that we need to make sure that the environmental regulations are in place, that we need new energy technologies, but the fact is if we look at what Bush is proposing in his budget, his budget doesn't match his rhetoric. In New Hampshire, we have a very effective Industries of the Future program where we have some of our traditional manufacturing facilities working with the Department of Energy. That's a program that just one paper mill in New Hampshire -- paper company -- is going to for a $500,000 investment be able to save $500,000 a year in energy efficiencies and that program in the Department of Energy's budget is being cut by 50 percent. So if we're going to talk about renewable energy, then we need to make the financial commitment to have the research to produce those renewable energy sources, and energy efficiency technologies. MARGARET WARNER: Governor Leavitt, let me turn now to an issue and you have spoken on this, and this had to do with the overall thrust in this plan is that we need more of a national energy picture, a national electrical grid or a more national one. How do you feel about that? Just to explain -- up till now state and regional -- sometimes even local authorities really had the final say in siting and approving power plants. GOV. MIKE LEAVITT: I've had an opportunity to speak with the administration and those who designed this policy about that issue. I've been concerned, for example, that state and local government prerogatives and the planning and zoning and all of the elements that go into siting a corridor could be ignored and have the federal government make those choices. I've been assured that nothing in this policy will result in legislation that would -- would roll over local community prerogatives. The best policy is made within driving distance and I believe the Bush administration's devoted to federalism; devoted to the idea that the local government makes the best decisions -- will honor that. On the other hand, it's important to recognize that there are times when regional transmission will result in an interest that's clearly regional or clearly national and that there's a compelling national and regional issue or need for the federal government to be involved. There's a way to balance it. Recently, we've had a plan to clean up the air over the Grand Canyon. It included six different states, three federal agencies, tribal nations, the private sector, and we were able to come up with a plan working with the EPA using the authority of the federal government to do it, and I feel confident that this is a step forward in being able to assure that we have adequate transmission and pipeline capacity. MARGARET WARNER: Governor Shaheen, how do you feel about this idea of giving the federal government essentially more authority to approve say transmission lines across state lines without -- one of the proposals is that, in fact, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission would have power of eminent domain to locate transmission -- high powered transmission lines. GOV. JEANNE SHAHEEN: Well, I certainly think it's worth talking about that. I would hate to see something that overrules the local planning process and what states feel like we need to do. So I think it's got to be a cooperative effort working together. But I think if we're going to have FERC step in, in those kinds of situations, then we need to look at FERC being able to address the wholesale power issues that we're seeing in California, where we're seeing wholesale power being charged at enormous prices, and it's having a real impact in California on their costs of power and the whole energy situation that California is experiencing. The idea of price caps MARGARET WARNER: Governor Ridge, address that issue that's now been raised by two of your colleagues, which is that this plan does not do a lot in the short term and that one of the things some governors wanted was to see some kind of wholesale power price caps. GOV. TOM RIDGE: I just returned from a trade mission with quite a few companies to central Europe and they're very interested in learning how and what Pennsylvania did to deregulate electricity, and these are countries that are moving toward a free market and the last thing that they are interested in is a government running energy -- government interfering in the market -- government setting prices. Price caps are not a solution to either the supply or the demand problem. Price caps are the reason and the inability of the -- to attract investment into California -- let the problem in California -- you got to give credit where credit's due -- they do everything they possibly can to conserve energy, but they don't want you drilling offshore, they don't want nuclear, they haven't licensed a generation plan, and as a matter of fact, as a condition, as a condition of their deregulation, they insisted everybody get out of the generation business. So you've got a great state, all the governors would love to see the kind of growth California's enjoyed over the past several years, and yet they chose to kick their generators out, and to date they haven't done much to reverse that. So hopefully they will take the lead from the president, who wants to make it easier for them to license generation capacity because at the end of the day it is a supply and demand matter. And when we saw the OPEC nations turn on the faucet and export enormous amounts of oil, prices dropped precipitously. They fell down, so it is a supply problem. We'll do something with conservation, but we have to increase production as well. MARGARET WARNER: A final last question: Briefly to our two Western governors. Governor Kitzhaber, starting with you, which is this proposal to let the federal government -- excuse me -- to let energy companies do a lot more drilling in federal lands. I know Oregon -- I think more than 50 percent of the land there is federal land. How do you feel about that? GOV. JOHN KITZHABER: Well, I guess I would feel more reassured about it if I felt that this was really an energy policy rather than just a production policy. We all recognize that we have to have fossil fuels as a transition, but we need to be transitioning into an energy future that is much less dependent on non-renewable resources. You don't produce oil and coal; you extract it, and that's just a fact. And I'm very concerned that I don't know what the end game in here is -- we're going to produce; we're going to drill; we're going to get into pristine public lands, and what is the energy future we're moving towards, because those are non-renewables, and so I guess I am rather skeptical at this point until I sort of see where this plan is supposed to take us in ten or twenty years. MARGARET WARNER: Governor Leavitt, a brief final word from you on that question. GOV. MIKE LEAVITT: We have a lot of experience with this in the West, and the truth is there are places that we shouldn't make energy production, but there's a lot of places where you can and without any intrusion or compromise of the environment each is a case by case situation and to simply rule it out or rule it in on the basis of a general policy would be wrong, but there are places where it can be done without any cost environmentally. MARGARET WARNER: All right. Governors all, thank you very much. Copyright © 2001 MacNeil-Lehrer Productions. All Rights Reserved. ***************************************************************** 28 Water leak keeps nuclear plant off line [St. Petersburg Times Online: Citrus County news ] The shutdown, which started Friday because of a faulty valve, will be extended for several more days. By ALEX LEARY © St. Petersburg Times, published May 23, 2001 CRYSTAL RIVER -- Florida Power's nuclear plant, which shut down Friday due to a faulty valve, will remain off line for at least several more days because of a water leak containing radioactive particles, a spokesman said Tuesday. The water was leaking from a valve inside the reactor containment building at a rate of 6 gallons per minute. The water is collected in a drain and treated, as is all water used by the plant, said spokesman Mac Harris. No employees came in contact with the water during normal operations, Harris said when asked if the leak posed a risk. "This is not a nuclear safety issue," he said. "Just like your car, you do not come in contact with the gasoline in your tank." The nuclear plant has not produced electricity since Friday because of a problem with a different valve that feeds water to a steam generator. That problem was discovered after a fire control system for the output transformers malfunctioned. There was no fire, Harris said, but fans that cool the transformers shut down. To avoid overheating, the plant was reduced to 65 percent of normal output. The fire control problem was fixed and as the output was increased, technicians noticed the feed water system was not working correctly. Harris said the faulty valve was corrected over the weekend. But as the plant was being returned to normal operating temperatures Monday, "leakage from a valve inside the reactor containment increased." Water has leaked from the valve for several months but not at the level discovered Monday, Harris said. "While the rate of leakage is within the limits allowed in the plant's license, plant management has made the decision to make a repair now rather than operate until the next scheduled refueling outage, which is scheduled for this fall," he said in an e-mail. The license allows 10 gallons per minute, Harris said. He said he did not know why the level was set at 10 gallons, other than it is part of the technical specifications for the facility. An on-site inspector for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission could not be reached. Once the nuclear unit is sufficiently cooled, workers will weld the valve. Harris declined to say how long the plant will be off line and said he was not sure how much the loss of power production will cost Florida Power Corp., a subsidiary of Progress Energy. Joe Adams, the president of the union representing many Florida Power employees, said he had spoken with a plant operator but did not know enough to comment. "The brothers and sisters of Local 433 are working their butts off to get that unit working," Adams said. "If you're not generating power, you're not making money." It has been several years since the last unscheduled shutdown, Harris said. In January 1996, the nuclear plant was shut down after officials discovered a leaking a condenser tube that was part of the plant's electricity generator. The shutdown was caused by equipment failure in a non-nuclear section of the plant. A leak in the condenser tubes can lead to higher levels of chloride, which corrodes the equipment. ***************************************************************** 29 Nuclear powers unite against NMD - May 22, 2001 CNN.com - MOSCOW, Russia -- Russia and China are united in their opposition to U.S. plans to build an anti-missile defence system, the Russian foreign ministry has said. Tuesday's statement came in the wake of a Chinese delegation visit to Moscow where President George W. Bush's proposed $60 billion National Missile Defense (NMD)programme was high on the agenda. Delegations from both sides discussed Washington's plan to develop a system, which amounts to a scrapping of the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile System. The diplomats "carried out a deep exchange of opinions on a wide range of disarmament problems, paying special attention to the situation around the ABM agreement," the foreign ministry statement said. "Russia and China again confirmed their opposition to plans to develop a system of 'global missile defence,' banned under the 1972 treaty, and don't consider the arguments of supporters of such systems to be convincing," it said. [National Missile Defense] National Missile Defense: Europe's view Washington insists the defence system would be aimed at smaller arsenals of so-called rogue states, named as North Korea or Iraq but Russia and China fear losing the deterrent power of their nuclear forces. China is also worried that Washington might extend protection from such a system to rival Taiwan, reducing Beijing's ability to use its growing missile forces to intimidate the island it regards as a renegade province. Meanwhile, Bush says he intends to look Russian President Vladimir Putin "in the eye" to say he does not view Russia as an enemy, a senior U.S. official said on Tuesday. Bush will also make clear that U.S. plans for a missile defence system are in both countries' interests. "Russia is not an enemy," the official told Reuters. He said Bush hopes to use the first summit of the two leaders, scheduled for June 16 in Slovenia, to convince Putin of his sincerity. "If there's a suspicion, that (Bush is) trying to diminish Russia, then it's going to be hard to have a good conversation. Step one is to look him in the eye," the official said. The summit follows top-level talks in Moscow earlier this month between Russian and U.S. officials. Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko said talks with U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz had been substantive but left "more questions than answers" over the missile defence plans. © 2001 Cable News Network LP, LLLP. ***************************************************************** 30 Secretary Abraham Starts Implementation of National Energy Policy by Announcing Strategic Review of Energy Efficiency R Programs energy.gov - Headquarters' Press Release RELEASE DATE: May 23, 2001 [Print Friendly Version] *Says Ever Freer Trade is Not Just Desirable, It is Essential* Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham made a quick start of his department’s implementation of the President’s National Energy Policy by directing the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy to undertake a strategic review of its energy efficiency research and development programs. This is the first recommendation of the National Energy Policy to be implemented since it was announced last week. “The President offered the American people a balanced and comprehensive plan to address our nation’s energy challenges,” Secretary Abraham said. “With energy demand outpacing supply, it’s also clear that the National Energy Policy is urgently needed. That’s why we are moving swiftly at the Department of Energy to implement key recommendations contained in the plan. “Today we are announcing a program review that highlights the balance in the President’s policy. The Energy Department researches and develops energy-saving technologies for energy-efficient lighting, windows and more fuel-efficient cars and trucks,” said Secretary Abraham. “This review will identify ways to improve the lives of Americans through energy efficiency while streamlining our programs and saving taxpayer dollars. I welcome the public’s input in this comprehensive review.” The President’s energy policy recommended a review of current funding and historic performance of DOE’s energy efficiency research and development programs. Secretary Abraham will propose appropriate funding of those research and development programs that are found to be performance-based and are modeled as public-private partnerships. Public input will be sought at the outset of the review to be conducted by DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. The review will evaluate past performance and identify ideas for future public-private partnerships. This review will complement a current National Academy of Sciences (NAS) study, which is expected to be released this summer. Secretary Abraham has set July 10 as the deadline for the initial phase of the review, with the final phase to be completed by September 1. Media Contact: Jeanne Lopatto, Joe Davis, 202/586-4940 Release No. R-01-076 ***************************************************************** 31 Government's reactor plans backfire The government faces a public relations disaster to sell the merits of a new nuclear reactor in Sydney after a Senate committee rejected the idea. The government, and scientific and medical organisations, have strongly supported a replacement reactor at Lucas Heights, claiming it is vital on medical and strategic grounds. But the committee, dominated by the Labor Party and Australian Democrats, yesterday rejected the government's position and accused it of scare-mongering. Science Minister Nick Minchin rejected the committee's majority finding, saying it was flawed and politically driven. "The committee has ignored the six inquiries held to date, all open and public, which have established the need for a new reactor," he said. Greenpeace and the Australian Conservation Foundation, however, said the report released today gave Labor the opportunity to block the reactor if it won government. "They (Labor) haven't made a recommendation at any point to say it should stop," Greenpeace campaigner Stephen Campbell told AAP. Sutherland Shire, in which the reactor would be located, has fought the proposal for the past 19 months. Mayor Tracie Sonda said the report's findings were a stop sign for the project. "The Prime Minister has no option but to shelve it in the interests of all Australians," she said. The committee recommended Senator Minchin be censured for refusing to comply with an order of the Senate to hand over documentation to the inquiry. ©AAP 2001 ***************************************************************** 32 Babbitt backs plan for Yucca repository Today: May 23, 2001 at 11:04:38 PDT By Benjamin Grove LAS VEGAS SUN WASHINGTON -- Former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, on Tuesday embraced the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, giving the dump a rare endorsement from a noted environmentalist. Babbitt in an interview after a speech stressed that his former department had no direct dealings with the scientific studies led by the Energy Department at the proposed site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. But based on his knowledge of the project, Nevada is the best place to permanently bury the nation's nuclear waste, Babbitt said. "There's not much left to quarrel about out there," Babbitt told a pro-nuclear crowd. "It is a safe, solid, geological repository." Babbitt, long considered a stalwart environmental advocate, is in private practice at Latham and Watkins, a Washington law firm. He was speaking at the Nuclear Energy Institute's annual conference, a gathering of about 400 officials from the nation's nuclear power utilities, this week in Washington. The comments were a striking departure from statements made by many politicians, and even former politicians, who urge caution and a close look at the scientific studies at Yucca, where the government wants to store 77,000 tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste for thousands of years. The DOE has not issued a final recommendation that the site is a safe place to store waste. Many officials, even some Yucca supporters, typically stress that "science, not politics" should determine whether waste is buried there, and do not outwardly endorse the plan. Babbitt also said Nevada Sens. Harry Reid and John Ensign were a notable, bipartisan political team that stand in the way of the project winning political approval, especially since the Senate is evenly divided with 50 members in each party. Reid is a Democrat; Ensign is a Republican. The Yucca proposal is "a political problem, period," Babbitt said. Babbitt in his speech said increasing nuclear power was necessary to meet the nation's rising energy needs. Most environmentalists blindly oppose nuclear power, without considering the role it plays in producing emissions-free electric power, he said. As be began his speech to the mostly Republican crowd, the former Clinton Cabinet member said he sensed a question in everyone's head: What is Bruce Babbitt doing here? But he pleased the crowd with clear support for Yucca. "You can tell I'm not in politics anymore," Babbitt said at one point during his talk. In an interview after his speech, Babbitt again confirmed his belief that Yucca is the "appropriate" place to bury nuclear waste. "I really believe that," Babbitt said. Babbitt said he was still friends with Reid and former Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., who bitterly oppose a nuclear dump at Yucca. Babbitt clearly has "differing opinions" with them on the Yucca issue, he said. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 33 JAPANESE GOVT SEEKS SUPPORT FOR PLUTONIUM-THERMAL POWER [Asia Pulse] Story Filed: Wednesday, May 23, 2001 2:38 AM EST TOKYO, May 23, 2001 (AsiaPulse via COMTEX) -- The Japanese government issued a message to regional administrations in which it pledged to continue promoting plutonium-thermal power generation and requested the understanding of regions with nuclear power plants. In the message, the government stressed that there will be no change in its plan to promote plutonium-thermal power generation under the administration of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. The government also asked for the support of regions with nuclear power plants, such as Kariwa, Niigata Prefecture, where residents will vote on whether to implement plutonium-thermal projects. It said it is reviewing the safety of plutonium-thermal power generation, which it calls indispensable to ensuring a stable energy supply. In a meeting on the nuclear fuel cycle held with the Aomori prefectural government in Tokyo on the same day, the central government solicited cooperation from the Aomori government. (Nikkei) ***************************************************************** 34 Atomic Energy Agency officials visit North Korea for talks Radio Australia News - 23/05/01: Atomic Energy Agency officials visit North Korea for talks International Atomic Energy Agency officials are visiting North Korea for talks on a nuclear deal with the US that has run into problems. The Korean Central News Agency says the officials will participate in talks for the implementation of the North Korea-US Agreed Framework. North Korea last week again threatened to pull out of the 1994 deal, under which it agreed to freeze its nuclear development programme, in return for U-S supplied light-water reactors. North Korea threatened to scrap the agreement because of delays in building the reactors, which are now not scheduled to be ready before 2008. The United States has said that it will stick to the landmark accord, and insisted that the communist regime does the same. The US made the 1994 deal because it feared North Korea's nuclear development could lead it to acquire weapons-grade plutonium and nuclear weapons. material from Pacnews, Agence France-Presse (AFP) and Reuters ***************************************************************** 35 Five builders vying for nuclear power plants Korea Herald!!_Business Five builders, including SK Construction and LG Construction, are eyeing to participate in the construction project of three nuclear power plants, which will be put up for public notice next year, industry sources said yesterday. Korea Electric Power Corp. will place orders for the three nuclear plants next year, starting with Singori Nos. 1 and 2, whose bid will be in January, followed by Sinwolsong Nos. 1 and 2's bid in June and Singori Nos. 3 and 4's tender in December. It would cost 4.9 trillion won for Singori Nos. 1 and 2, 4.7 trillion won for Sinwolsong Nos. 1 and 2 and 5.8 trillion won for Singori Nos. 3 and 4, with construction expenses for each plant amounting to 1 trillion won, sources said. Construction companies especially are showing interest in next year's biddings, as they are the first in five years since the last order was placed by KEPCO for Wolsong Nos. 5 and 6 in 1995, industry watchers said. KEPCO is said to be flexible in selecting construction firms since big players in the nuclear power plant construction, such as Hyundai Engineering and Construction, Daewoo Construction and Dong Ah Construction, are in deep financial trouble. SK Construction and LG Construction have already received Korea Electric Power Industry Code (KEPIC) certificates and have completed technical training for their employees, entitling the firms to participate in the nuclear power plant construction. Sanwhan Enterprise also secured the KEPIC certificate in February and is planning to start training 40 of its specialists next month. Sambu Construction, which formed a taskforce with Hyundai Industrial Development recently, is also trying to acquire the KEPIC certificate and provide training to its employees. Considering that the nuclear power plant construction is a huge project, the five builders are deliberating on forming a consortium, if they decide they cannot pursue the project alone. (jhl@koreaherald.co.kr) By Lee Jae-hee Staff reporter 2001.05.24 (C) Copyright 2000 Digital Korea Herald. All rights ***************************************************************** 36 AEA quits nuclear facility BBC News | BUSINESS | Tuesday, 22 May, 2001, 18:55 GMT 19:55 UK Sellafield may carry out some of the work AEA Technology, the last business to be privatised under the Conservatives, is to cease operating a nuclear testing facility in Oxfordshire. Under pressure from City investors, the company had already declared its intention to hive off all its nuclear operations. The staff trade union, the IPMS, says 90 jobs are at risk at the company's Harwell base. Overall, 130 staff are affected. However, a management spokesman said there would be no compulsory redundancies and most employees would be offered jobs in other areas. The 1996 privatisation was branded as "absolutely disgraceful" by Jane Griffiths, a member of the Commons Public Accounts Committee. AEA Technology is moving out of nuclear work She was responding to a report by the committee in 1998, saying more than £160m of taxpayers' money was lost by civil servants who bungled the privatisation. Shares were valued at 280p on flotation, but more than tripled in value. They have now fallen below the launch price and the management has had to issue profit warnings to the City. It is doing well in non-nuclear areas - especially since taking over the former British Rail research centre at Derby, according to John Billard of the IPMS trade union. He said: "That has turned out to be the money-spinner that has kept the company going. Rail safety "You can make money in rail safety now without trying. "It is also strong on its environmental business - air sampling, alternative energy issues and so on." Mr Billard said that cutting all involvement in nuclear activities showed privatisation had not worked. "The company has clearly not been a success." The "B220 shielded facility" at Harwell runs safety checks on nuclear fuels and materials after they have been irradiated. It is also used to provide waste management services, and to make radioactive products for medical and industrial clients. 'Cost pressure' A company statement said: "The facility has been facing difficulties because of static market conditions, increasing competition, over capacity and significant cost pressure from customers. "Greater regulatory requirements are also leading to greater costs. "The 130 staff who work in B220 are extremely professional and we hope to transfer them to other parts of AEA Technology. "Voluntary redundancy terms may be available to some." Closure will take three years, including decommissioning time. Some testing work will transfer to Sellafield, in Cumbria, or to plants outside the UK. With new science-based enterprise coming in to the area, the local economy is unlikely to be harmed. ***************************************************************** 37 Nuclear power: the numbers don't add up Welcome to CommentWire by Datamonitor Catalyst: British Energy will lobby the next UK government for further support for nuclear power. 22/05/2001 16:03:00 (CommentWire) - Everyone is talking about nuclear power, but it just isn't economically viable. Even if operating costs can be made comparable to gas and coal, plant construction is far too expensive. Building nuclear power is clearly not the way to make money in the competitive, profit-driven generation industries of the UK and the US. Nuclear power is the new rock and roll. Both Tony Blair and George Bush have made comments in recent weeks concerning the importance of the industry to their countries' electricity markets. Following this encouragement, British Energy, the UK's major owner of nuclear power, has announced that it is putting a lobbying document together in support of developing further nuclear capacity. But the question remains: who is going to pay for plant construction in a competitive electricity market? A new nuclear power plant is likely to cost in the region of $5 billion, and take five years to construct. Even if the operating cost of the nuclear plant is competitive in a generation industry with rapidly increasing gas prices, that is a lot of money and a long time to wait. It is also why France, the only western economy driving ahead with nuclear power, doesn't want a competitive generation market. Only a regulated generation industry can effectively support the new build of nuclear power plants. One of the major issues facing the UK and US nuclear industries is the cost of decommissioning, and it is more likely that money will be spent trying to keep plants open rather than building new ones. The UK is not in the same position in the US, in that it has ample generating capacity, and increases in gas price can be passed through to electricity price. In the US, it is far more likely that investor owned utilities will look to put new coal capacity on the ground, to add to their generation and avoid high gas prices, than take a risky step back into nuclear power. Source: Datamonitor - 22/05/2001 16:03: ***************************************************************** 38 Nuke Accident Test Fax Draws Red Faces Wednesday May 23 8:58 AM ET BERLIN (Reuters) - The German Environment Ministry unintentionally released a practice warning statement about a fictitious nuclear accident at a French power plant on Tuesday -- which embarrassed officials rushed to withdraw. ``French authorities confirm a fault at the Gravelines nuclear power plant,'' read the headline on the statement erroneously sent to Reuters. ``Currently, no effects on Germany.'' ``Since the German weather service shows a stable easterly wind over Germany, France and in Gravelines itself, radioactive material... would be transported westwards in the direction of southern England and Northern Ireland,'' it said. ``Currently it is not expected that radiation protection measures will be necessary in Germany.'' Asked to explain the statement headed ``practice'' in small letters, a ministry spokeswoman said there had been no accident at the Gravelines power plant in northern France near the Belgian border. He said the statement was issued by mistake. ``The press statement reflects a fictitious scenario of the exercise. No fault has really occurred at Gravelines today,'' the ministry said in a second statement sent hours later. ``The aim of the exercise is to test the effective communication between the states and international organizations and the national emergency protection regimes,'' it said. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) Nuclear Energy Agency in France said 54 countries and five international organizations were taking part in the nuclear emergency management exercise centered on Gravelines. Copyright © 2001 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 39 Russia specialist hails nuke accident exercise results [ITAR/TASS News Agency] Story Filed: Wednesday, May 23, 2001 5:25 AM EST MOSCOW, May 23, 2001 (Itar-Tass via COMTEX) -- The director of the Russian Atomic Ministry's crisis centre hailed on Wednesday the results of an international exercise which practiced reaction to an accident at a nuclear power plant. Russian specialists together with specialists from 47 countries took part in the exercise, which ended on Wednesday. In line with the scenario, professionals from different countries dealt with a major accident at a French nuclear power plant. French specialists were expected to liquidate the aftermath of the catastrophe at the site, while their colleagues from other states kept in constant touch with France and coordinated efforts to liquidate radioactive contamination of territories. The aim of the exercise was to test new forms of warning, emergency measures concepts as well as ability of international and national organisations to provide the population with emergency information through media means. All information on the exercise was processed by the crisis centre. According to its director, Venidikt Berchik, "the exercise has demonstrated a high level of readiness of all Atomic Ministry services responsible for the safety of Russia's atomic sector." Berchik stressed that "Russia's atomic sector holds the second place in the world after Japan as concerns the level of safety at its atomic agencies." International organisations with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at the head performed a general management of the exercise, while direct management was made by the heads of national atomic branches. The IAEA will sum up the results of the exercise in Vienna in September. By Vladimir Rogachev (c) 1996-2001 ITAR-TASS. All rights reserved. ***************************************************************** 40 Residents skeptical about access to Yucca hearings Today: May 23, 2001 at 10:20:29 PDT By Mary Manning LAS VEGAS SUN PAHRUMP -- If Yucca Mountain is recommended as the site to store the nation's high-level nuclear waste, computers will make hearings to license a repository more accessible than previously possible, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission officials said Tuesday. But about 30 residents of this rural community just 25 miles from Yucca Mountain were not impressed. "Pahrump is 20 years behind the times," Pahrump Valley resident Sally Devlin said of the area's computer access. She asked how the NRC staff expected the farming and retirement town to take advantage of the digitized volumes of documents expected to be put online. Commission lawyers described the Licensing Support Network the NRC will initiate, if the DOE recommends Yucca Mountain as a repository. All documents supporting or contradicting the DOE's evidence will be posted on the Internet, NRC general counsel Dennis Dambly said. The computerized files will allow those challenging the project a chance to see the DOE's evidence, he said. But rural residents were skeptical of their ability to find, download and analyze all of the information. Citizen Alert, a statewide watchdog group, made a formal request for those documents on paper. Kalynda Tilges, nuclear coordinator for Citizen Alert, asked for access and help so remote residents can review the documents. The NRC staff also explained the process to the residents. Months before the NRC hearing begins, commission staff will review technical information, Bill Reamer, NRC's chief of the High-Level Waste Branch, said. If there is not enough scientific evidence, DOE will not be allowed to proceed to a formal hearing, he said. "The NRC is not a developer or a promoter of Yucca Mountain," Reamer said. Once the NRC staff reviews thousands of pages of scientific documents, the Atomic Safety Licensing Board, made up of an attorney and two scientific experts, will decide who participates in the formal hearing. Individuals or organizations have to prove direct harm from a repository to participate. Susi Snyder, a Pahrump resident working with the Native American Shundahai Network, wanted to know how people such as rural Nevada residents could follow the complex NRC hearings. The commission will not only license the DOE for building a repository, but conduct a second hearing before the DOE could accept nuclear waste in 2010. "What assurances do we have that members of the Atomic Safety Licensing Board are not old gray men in old gray suits with old gray brains?" Snyder asked. The NRC and its safety board will base any decisions on the evidence presented during the hearings, Chandler said. All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 41 Moscow Hosts Conference 'Innovation Technologies In Nuclear Power Industry Of The 21st Century' Pravda.RU May, 22 2001 Pravda.ru comes forward with working out conceptions and creating new corporative representative sites, as well as with promotion of new products in the Net. More in detail... MOSCOW HOSTS CONFERENCE 'INNOVATION TECHNOLOGIES IN NUCLEAR POWER INDUSTRY OF THE 21ST CENTURY' The two-day international conference of CIS countries, "Innovation Technologies in the Nuclear Power Industry of the 21st Century," opened in Moscow on Tuesday. The conference is being held under the decision of the CIS Commission on Cooperation in the Use of Atomic Energy for Peaceful Purposes. As RIA Novosti was told in the press service of the Ministry of Atomic Energy, the main aim of the conference is to coordinate efforts of the CIS countries for implementing the Russian President's initiative to provide energy for sustainable development of mankind, for a radical solution of the problem of nuclear weapons non-proliferation and for environmental improvement of our planet. The conference is attended by about 100 specialists from nine CIS countries - Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine. As is expected, the conference will be addressed by Russian First Deputy Minister of Atomic Energy Valentin Ivanov, scientific chief of the research and design institute of power engineering Yevgeny Adamov, and the heads of the atomic facilities in the CIS countries supervising the strategy of developing these industries there in the course of the coming 10-20 years. At technological sessions, scientific reports will be delivered on the development of new reactor technologies that would meet up-to-date safety requirements of the atomic power industry, would be able to compete with traditional energy and would meet the demands of the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. RIA 'Novosti' United Nations Development Project - Regional Bureau for Europe & the CIS ***************************************************************** 42 Industry seeks 50 nuke plants Today: May 23, 2001 at 11:04:38 PDT Move would add 50 percent more waste to a dumpsite By Benjamin Grove LAS VEGAS SUN WASHINGTON -- The nation's nuclear utilities are preparing to build at least 50 power plants in the next 20 years, the industry's top officials announced today. Emboldened by a President Bush's pro-nuclear national energy strategy released last week -- and fresh praise in a personal greeting by Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday -- nuclear industry executives unveiled a "bold new vision" that would roughly increase by 50 percent the number of U.S. nuclear power plants, currently 103. For Nevada, that means the national nuclear waste dump proposed for Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, would need to store about 50 percent more waste, said Joe Colvin, president and chief executive of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's lobby group. Current designs under consideration include space for about 77,000 spent nuclear fuel rods. "We have studied that particular site more than any site in the universe, and there hasn't been anything to make us decide that we can't protect the environment from the waste for tens of thousands of years," Colvin said in an interview today. Congress in 1987 selected Yucca Mountain to be the national high-level waste repository. The Energy Department has been studying it for years and is expected to recommend the site to the president later this year. Nevada policymakers oppose the plan. Opening Yucca is a key to a "renaissance" in nuclear power, industry officials said. No electric company has ordered a nuclear plant since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. That's partly because of public anxiety, but also the high cost of building plants, strict regulations and the issue of where to put the waste. But times have changed: The nation now faces an energy shortage, industry officials said. The Bush administration and key lawmakers are saying that nuclear power is not just an option, but a necessity. "My, what a mistake we made," by not building more nuclear power plants, Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., told the gathering of nuclear officials today. That was music to the ears of about 400 industry executives who gathered for the annual conference at a Washington hotel this week. Attendees buzzed about a new optimism in the industry during breaks and general sessions. Cheney offered a personal message Tuesday. Nuclear power "is a very important part of our energy policy today in the United States," said Cheney, who received a standing ovation. It won't be easy to jump-start a flagging industry, officials acknowledge. But the nation's nuclear utility companies are preparing to build plants that could produce another 50,000 megawatts of electricity, Colvin said. That's roughly 50 new plants, if utilities decide to stick with building large-scale reactors. The nation needs that power as population and electricity demands rise, Colvin said. The nation's 103 reactors produce nearly 20 percent of the nation's electricity. Given future shifts in how energy is produced, nuclear plants could fuel about 23 percent of the nation's electricity by 2020. Another option: Build more, smaller reactors that use new technology, such as a "pebble bed" reactor, which produces about one-tenth of a traditional 1,100-megawatt plant, Colvin said. "It's doable," Colvin said about building all the plants. "And it is not only doable, it's a necessity." Colvin outlined a variety of tasks ahead for the industry, including maintain what has been efficient, safe power production since Three Mile Island; increase public and congressional support for nuclear energy; and refill a talent pool that has sagged over the years by encouraging young scientists to pursue nuclear fields. By 2020, nuclear energy will be "widely recognized as a safe, reliable, competitive and environmentally sound source of electricity, and adding value to our quality of life." In a roundtable discussion, officials from other sectors weighed in on the plan. Investors are concerned about some financial risks, including the liability created by nuclear waste, but in general, "they're not scared of nuclear power," said Douglas Kimmelman, chairman of Goldman Sachs' Global Power business. "Nuclear utilities are generating significant cash flows from those operations." Another player, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, is getting ready to make "fair, tough" reviews of new nuclear plant proposals, NRC Chairman Richard Meserve said. Nuclear utilities face a number of tasks before they could start constructing plants, which takes four years or more. Utilities have to first obtain sites -- no easy task given widespread "not-in-my-back yard" opposition to plants. Then utilities face environmental reviews, licensing and construction permitting. "There is a need for the NRC to prepare for the work," Meserve told the industry officials, adding that the NRC could not play a "promotional role" in touting nuclear power. "We believe we are up to the task." All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 43 Reid played major role in decision of senator Today: May 23, 2001 at 11:04:38 PDT By Jeff German LAS VEGAS SUN Nevada Sen. Harry Reid brokered the deal that is expected to allow Sen. James Jeffords, R-Vt., to abandon the Republican Party and become an independent, Capitol Hill sources said this morning. The switch would give the Democrats a 50-49 majority and make Reid the assistant majority leader, the second most powerful person in the Senate. Democrats were eagerly anticipating taking back control of the Senate, but they were being guarded this morning about the deal with Jeffords. The Vermont Republican was scheduled to make the announcement today, but put it off until Thursday so that he could talk with his constituents. "Nobody on our side is gloating and confident that this is a done deal," one source close to Reid told the Sun. "We think we put a pretty good offer on the table and that it's pretty attractive. "But all of the resources and bargaining chips that are at the disposal of the White House and the Republican majority in Congress can't be underestimated." If the Democrats were to hold the reins of the Senate, it would put a crimp in President Bush's legislative agenda. Talks with Jeffords intensified in the past couple of weeks with Reid and Democratic Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota doing most of the negotiating, sources said. The talks provided Reid, the current assistant Democratic leader, with a chance to showcase his skills at backroom dealing. "This was Harry Reid at his best," one informed source said. "You close the doors and behind the scenes and there's no better dealmaker than Harry Reid. "He understands what appeals to people. Nobody can can relate better with people on a personal level than him." Reid's decision to allow Jeffords, instead of himself, to take over the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee was called the key to the deal. "This is a way for Jeffords to continue to play an important role in the Senate, another source close to Reid said. Reid, the source said, still will wield much influence over the committee with Jeffords at the helm. "He still will be the senior member on the committee and will be able to direct its resources and mission," the source said. The source said giving up the chairmanship of the panel was a small price to pay for Reid to become the No. 2 man in the Senate. "As assistant majority leader, he'll be able to make sure that the interests of Nevadans will be better protected." the source said. "He'll be able to have an enormous amount of input in the Senate's agenda and schedule of what legislation is coming to the floor." Casino industry lobbyists, fending off an array of attacks upon the industry in Washington, are delighted with Reid's rise to the top. "It's a big plus to get him in the situation where he has even more power now," one veteran lobbyist said. "I would think that anybody in the industry would be happy to see their No. 1 supporter gain an increase in power." All contents copyright 2001 Las Vegas SUN, Inc. ***************************************************************** 44 Babbitt endorses Yucca Mountain nuclear dump [Las Vegas Review-Journal] Wednesday, May 23, 2001 Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal By STEVE TETREAULT DONREY WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON -- Former Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, a national environmental voice who served on the commission that studied the Three Mile Island accident more than 20 years ago, on Tuesday endorsed Yucca Mountain in Nevada as "safe and appropriate" to bury nuclear waste. "Studies have gone on at Yucca Mountain. There's not much left to quarrel about out there. It's a safe, solid geologic repository," Babbitt told an audience of nuclear power executives attending an industry conference. He said problems facing nuclear waste disposal stem mostly from opposition by Nevada senators, a point frequently made by supporters of the Energy Department's effort to study the flat ridge 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas for waste burial. Decisions on site suitability are expected late this year. "The geologic disposal of nuclear waste is a political problem, period," he said. Babbitt, one of the top environmental leaders of the Clinton administration and a former Arizona governor, delivered a strikingly pro-nuclear speech to a conference organized by the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's political and policy arm. He now is an attorney with Latham &Watkins, a Washington law firm. On the topic of nuclear waste, his appearance overshadowed Vice President Dick Cheney, who drew two standing ovations during a 10-minute speech earlier in the day. Cheney mentioned nuclear waste disposal only in passing -- days after the release of a national energy strategy he authored that seeks to expand the nation's reliance on nuclear energy. By the recollection of people who monitor the nuclear waste issue, Babbitt is the first major Democrat to clearly voice support for a Yucca Mountain repository since former Sen. J. Bennett Johnston of Louisiana, who guided nuclear waste bills in Congress more than a decade ago. As interior secretary for all eight years of the Clinton presidency, Babbitt's credentials could complicate efforts to argue against a repository on environmental grounds, Nevada officials said. "It certainly does not help," said former Sen. Richard Bryan, a Democrat. "He's no longer a public official, but clearly this does give the nuclear energy community an argument that a person who was formerly viewed as a leading environmentalist has now embraced nuclear power." Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said Babbitt's comments serve to remind that Democrats as well as Republicans are aiming to put nuclear waste in Nevada over the state's objections. "I've been saying all along there are 31 states that want to cram nuclear waste down our throat," he said, referring to those with nuclear power plants. "It's nothing to do with Democrats nor Republicans, or the Clinton administration or the Bush administration." Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said because Babbitt no longer is in government, his remarks "mean nothing, with all due respect. What would we care about (former Interior Secretary) James Watt's feelings on Yucca Mountain? I can have the same care about Bruce Babbitt." Reid said Babbitt ignores the potential dangers of transporting nuclear waste. He also challenged Babbitt's position on Yucca Mountain when as interior secretary he blocked the establishment of a low-level nuclear dump in Ward Valley, Calif., over concerns about groundwater contamination. Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said Babbitt "is sticking his nose somewhere it doesn't belong. He was on the Three Mile Island commission and it's his feeling that nuclear power is safe?" Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., was not available for comment. Environmentalists challenged Babbitt. "I think he's greatly mistaken," said Anna Aurilio, legislative director of USPIRG, an environmental- and consumer-interest group. "He's ignoring the consequences that a waste dump would have on the surrounding environment." Nevada officials and environmental groups contend Yucca Mountain faces potential threats from rising groundwater and geologic instability and cannot meet the government's requirement that it safely store tens of thousands of tons of highly radioactive waste for 10,000 years. Babbitt did not comment on Nevada's arguments. "I believe the regulatory process needs to conclude," he said. "Based on my understanding of the process, I believe Yucca Mountain is an appropriate and safe site." Babbitt said he had not voiced his position previously because high-level nuclear waste disposal was not on his plate at the Interior Department. It could not be determined Tuesday whether he has toured Yucca Mountain. Babbitt, who holds a graduate degree in geophysics, said his views on nuclear power were shaped by service on the Kemeny Commission, the 12-member presidential panel that studied nuclear power in the wake of the Three Mile Island accident in March 1979. He said he concluded nuclear energy could be managed safely, that it generates power free of pollutants, and that nuclear technology holds promise to deliver "fail-safe" reactor cores. "I'm only saying what I believe based upon 30 years experience with these issues," he said. "I've got a degree in physics, I was on the Three Mile Island commission, governor of Arizona for nine years. I watched over the construction of the Palos Verdes complex," the nuclear generating station 45 miles west of Phoenix. This story is located at: http://www.lvrj.com/lvrj_home/2001/May-23-Wed-2001/news/16161786.html ***************************************************************** ***************************************************************** NUCLEAR WEAPONS ARTICLES ***************************************************************** 1 REID READIES PLAN TO AID FALLON LEUKEMIA EFFORTS May 22, 2001 Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Harry Reid, Ranking Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Commitee, said today he will be seeking federal funds (1) to aid the investigation into a series of leukemia cases identified in the Fallon, Nevada area, (2) to reduce environmental risks in that community and (3) to create a national database for tracking and responding to chronic disease. "Every day I ask myself if we are doing enough for the families of these leukemia patients in Fallon. We have an obligation to these children, their parents and the community to move forward as fast as possible to address these cancer cases and to eliminate any identifiable environmental hazards. Through the ongoing work of state health officials and recommendations complied during last month's field hearing in Fallon, a number of important needs in the community have been identified. Now that we know what needs to be accomplished, it is time to roll-up our sleeves and get moving," said Reid, the Assistant Democratic Leader. As a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Reid plays a key role in funding federal agencies and programs, including the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ASTDR). Both agencies already are actively investigating the Fallon cancer cases. "By directing CDC and other federal agencies to fund ongoing efforts in Fallon, we can better ensure that these cancer cases continue to be a top priority," he said. "We already have a list of recommendations developed by experts working with Nevada's public health officials, but without adequate resources, they cannot be fully implemented. This is a life or death issue and we literally cannot afford to fall behind in our efforts to unravel this mystery." By adding legislative language to Senate spending bills, Reid said he will direct the CDC, ASTDR and other relevant federal agencies to investigate environmental contamination in the Fallon area consistent with recommendations from public health officials in Nevada. Reid also will seek to direct the National Institutes of Health and Department of Defense to determine whether a virus could be responsible for the Fallon leukemia cases. "While they may seem remote, we are considering every theory at this point. As a parent, I know that if these were my children, I would not rest until I was satisfied that every avenue had been explored. Until we look into all of these scenarios, we cannot rule out any potential factor in these leukemia cases," Reid said. While no connection has been established between high levels of arsenic in drinking water and leukemia, Reid said it makes good health sense to lower levels of this contaminant in all drinking water supplies. A first step would be to treat school water supplies. "School children in Churchill County are drinking water containing nearly twice the current federal limit for arsenic. While expanded community water treatment can offer a long-term solution, I will be seeking $100,000 to provide the eight area schools with technology that can remove arsenic on the spot," Reid said. Reid also will seek separate funds to assist the City of Fallon and the Fallon Naval Air Station in reducing similar arsenic levels in local drinking water. "Both the City of Fallon and the Naval Air Station have been ordered by the Environmental Protection Agency to reduce arsenic levels in drinking water," Reid said. "To assist with the cost of treatment and infrastructure improvements, I will be requesting $10 million in federal funding to meet this worthy goal." The funding would be used to construct a new water treatment facility to reduce arsenic levels in drinking water for the City of Fallon, Fallon Naval Air Station, and Fallon Paiute-Shoshone Indian Tribe. Reid said he would also consider expanding the funding request if it could be determined that it was feasible to connect residents living in areas of Churchill County outside Fallon to the consolidated drinking water system. "More than 4000 wells provide water to residents of Churchill County. Unfortunately, many of these same wells contain unacceptable levels of arsenic, uranium and other dangerous contaminants. We need to reach out to these private well owners an assist them with water testing. I would like to see our local Cooperative Extension play a lead role in offering expertise and assistance," said Reid. Reid indicated he will seek $250,000 in federal funds for the University of Nevada Cooperative Extension to establish a program to aid county residents living in areas where studies by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) identify the drinking water to pose a risk to public health. Funding would aid private well owners in Churchill County with the cost of testing their water for harmful contaminants. Finally, Reid noted there was a broad consensus among witnesses at the Fallon hearing that the U.S. lacks a comprehensive system to promote the early identification of disease clusters, and to prompt investigation of those reports. "The U.S. needs a coordinated system to support communities like Fallon and others across the country in identifying and responding to chronic disease outbreaks. Ultimately these efforts will help build our understanding of causes for disease so that one day they may be prevented in the future," Reid said. Reid will request $60 million in federal funding this year to develop a coordinated Nationwide Health Tracking Network to identify, track and respond to chronic diseases and their related environmental factors. Funding would be used to establish model pilot programs to track and respond to clusters in each of 10 states, which would receive funding for state environmental health investigators to lead rapid response teams. In addition, the funding would go to improving access to technology and supporting regional environmental laboratories, and developing standards and protocols to aid state and local officials in disease tracking and responding to clusters. A significant number of groups have already expressed support for this endeavor, as have members of Congress representing both sides of the aisle. ***************************************************************** 2 Capitol Alert: Neighbors of ex-shipyard fear cleanup's incomplete: They worry that a secret Navy lab may have left behind dangerous radioactive waste. Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in the Bayview neighborhood of San Francisco contains a landfill that may be contaminated with radioactive waste. Bee/Dick Schmidt Neighbors of ex-shipyard fear cleanup's incomplete: They worry that a secret Navy lab may have left behind dangerous radioactive waste. By Herbert A. Sample Bee San Francisco Bureau *(Published May 23, 2001)* SAN FRANCISCO -- Oscar James' father was a rigger at Hunters Point Naval Shipyard during World War II, and he used to tell his son about the hazardous materials he worked with and helped dump at sea. James and his family still live near the now-defunct shipyard in the Bayview community of San Francisco. But memories of what his father told him ring clear these days, as James and others in the area become increasingly worried about the possible presence of dangerous radioactive materials at the former base. Twenty-seven years after the shipyard closed, city officials are preparing grand plans to transform it into a long-awaited economic windfall for Bayview. But it is still not clear just what a secret Navy radiological research lab did on the base years ago and where on the base it dumped tons of the toxic materials it handled. And that scares and angers James, 55. "I love this country, but this country has lied to this community," James told officials from the Navy, the federal Environmental Protection Agency and state agencies at a community meeting May 14. "You people are getting paid to protect us. Protect us!" The shipyard, which juts into San Francisco Bay at the city's southeast corner, was a major maintenance station during and after World War II. It became a magnet for African American workers from the South who made Bayview one of the city's most stable and vigorous middle-class communities. The Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory studied the effects of radiation on people, animals, plants and equipment at a time when rules on the handling of radioactive materials were loose. It also explored methods of decontaminating ships that had been irradiated during nuclear bomb tests. The aircraft carrier USS Independence, for example, was moored at Hunters Point in 1947 after suffering severe damage from a bomb blast in the South Pacific. Environmentalists believe it later was sunk with other radioactive waste 30 miles west of San Francisco near the Farallon Islands, in what is now a major fishing area. The Navy won't say where the carrier was scuttled. James recalled that his father, Willie L. James, said he had helped dump radioactive and other toxic materials near the Farallones and that dangerous missile components were discarded in San Francisco Bay. The Navy shut the Hunters Point facility in the early 1970s, and it was listed on the 1991 base closure list. Since then, the city and Bayview residents have planned to redevelop the site for industrial and residential uses in hopes of restoring the jobs and economic vitality the shipyard once provided. But that goal appears jeopardized because of questions raised about the site by recent articles in the San Francisco Weekly. Though the existence of the lab and its work has been known for some time, and the base long has been considered one of the nation's most polluted facilities, the Weekly packaged that and some new revelations in a way that caught the eye of many residents. Navy officials insist there is no reason to think there are unknown radiological dangers at the facility, and they dismiss the articles as speculative. "All the areas we have investigated and have (cleared for redevelopment) we believe to be safe," said Richard Mach, the Navy's environmental coordinator for the base. "We already know of areas that need further work, and we are doing field investigation as we speak." Of particular concern to nearby residents is a dump that holds radium-coated instrument dials that decompose into radon gas and a nearby landfill that may contain toxic radioactive substances. The landfill caught fire last fall, sending plumes of yellow-green smoke over adjacent neighborhoods, which already suffer from high rates of respiratory ailments, according to a local health study. It was extinguished a month later, but the Navy delayed warning the community, the city or the EPA about the blaze for two weeks. The EPA, which monitors the Navy's work, maintains there is no immediate radiation threat to public health. But it has expressed concern about the radium dials, which it has directed the Navy to remove. The articles "have some very alarming allegations in them," said Claire Trombadore, the EPA's project manager. "As a result, we are -- together with the Navy -- taking a second look" at the radiation cleanup program. "We have covered a lot of ground with the radiation, and we are pretty confident that we are not going to find an unknown," she added. But many in Bayview distrust the Navy to thoroughly research what went on at the lab and tell all, and they are not convinced the EPA will force the best cleanup. "I don't think anything (the Navy) could do would surprise anyone in terms of neglect, misrepresentation, inadvertent incompetence or malicious mischief," said Scott Madison, chairman of a citizens shipyard advisory panel and owner of a business that leases space at the base. "There's a deficit of information in this cleanup process," said Saul Bloom, a member of the committee and the head of Arc Ecology, a local environmental group. "We are making decisions on the future of this property without enough information." Some longtime residents were less polite. "The Navy has been lying all these years," Ena Aquirre said at last week's meeting. "They have never given us a clear example of what happened out there." Olin Webb accused the Navy of environmental racism. "The only reason no one has been listening to us is because this is an African American community," he said. At this point, city redevelopment officials say plans to transform the shipyard are proceeding, but acknowledge that large hurdles remain. More than 86 percent of San Francisco voters passed a ballot measure last year that insists the entire base be cleaned to the highest standard, one that would permit housing. The Navy, which only has to abide by state and federal environmental laws, essentially has said it will not honor that request. That is prompting the measure's supporters to discuss trying to place an initiative on a statewide ballot next year which would place that standard into state law and force the military's compliance at the shipyard and numerous other closed facilities. "I have complete confidence that (the shipyard) will be cleaned up to a level satisfactory for a reuse plan," said Madison, the citizens advisory committee chairman. "When? I don't have the slightest idea. It is just a mess, and it always has been, and it stands at this point to get worse." The Bee's Herbert A. Sample can be reached at (510) 625-9983 or hsample@sacbee.com. Sacramento Bee ***************************************************************** 3 Hanford Completes Soil Cleanup Plan for Columbia River Corridor EarthVision Environmental News* RICHLAND, WA, May 22, 2001 - The Hanford Site's 300 Area, which is located on the Columbia River and is where the US Department of Energy (DOE) conducted nuclear fuel fabrication and research activities, has a completed soil cleanup plan in place now that the final Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act Record of Decision (ROD) has been signed. The US Department of Energy Richland Operations Office (DOE-RL), Washington State Department of Ecology (Ecology), and US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) took part in the signing, which also completes the plan for soil cleanup in the Columbia River Corridor. In addition to lying along the river's course, the 300 Area is within sight of the city of Richland's northern boundary. Hanford's River Corridor consists of about 210 square miles of land that, in its entirety, houses: + Nine former plutonium production reactors and dozens of associated structures + Nearly 900 waste sites + About 150 unneeded and aging facilities/structures in Hanford's 300 Area, including two complex radiological laboratoriesThe ROD outlines how DOE and its contractors will remove contaminated soil, structures, and associated debris from 47 waste sites and nine burial grounds - including the 618-10 and 618-11 burial grounds north of the 300 Area. The ROD is the last of three for the 300 Area. "This action gives us a clear blueprint for cleanup work in the 300 Area to meet our goal for restoring the Columbia River Corridor," said Michael H. Schlender, DOE-RL's Deputy Manager for Site Transition. "We now have the final piece of the regulatory process complete for soil cleanup, and can move forward on a more defined path to completion." According to DOE, the contaminated soil will be removed, treated as necessary, and disposed of in Hanford's Environmental Restoration Disposal Facility, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant in New Mexico, and other regulator-approved facilities. The excavated areas will ultimately be backfilled, re-contoured, and re-vegetated or re-surfaced, if necessary. "We are pleased this ROD has been signed because it lays out a specific pathway for 300 Area cleanup actions to meet the Tri-Party Agreement cleanup milestones," said Doug Sherwood, EPA Hanford Project Manager. "It's a critical piece of the overall Hanford cleanup picture and especially important because of the 300 Area's proximity to the Columbia River and the City of Richland." "This Record of Decision and the one we signed last September for the 100 Area Burial Grounds are significant because they set the cleanup direction for a significant portion of the Columbia River corridor," said John Price, Ecology's project manager for environmental restoration. "The Department now is committed in writing to clean up all soil contamination in the 100 and 300 Areas." DOE said its strategy is to complete all 300 Area cleanup work by 2012, with the exception of the 618-10 and 618-11 burial grounds, which will require additional study and regulatory consultation in order to prepare a cleanup plan. The Hanford Site, located in southeastern Washington State, was established during World War II as part of the top secret Manhattan Project to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons. Weapons material production was halted in the late 1980s and the Site is now engaged in the world's largest cleanup effort to deal with the legacy of radioactive and hazardous wastes that resulted from the plutonium production era. ***************************************************************** 4 Don't stop funding INEEL energy research Idaho State Journal May 23, 2001 Our View: Nuclear power has the potential to reduce dependence on oil, but it must be made safe. President Bush's recently-announced national energy plan places great emphasis on oil and gas exploration, but there is additional attention paid to another form of energy that could end up being beneficial to southeast Idaho. Nuclear energy, an efficient form of power that could go a long way toward alleviating the power crunch in the Northwest, appears prominently on Bush's plan. With the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory — the country's top nuclear research site — situated in our backyard, our area could stand to gain economically. But there's a sticking point. Nuclear energy, easily the most efficient form of energy known to man, also has the potential to be highly dangerous. Waste from spent fuel carries a radioactive half-life that makes it deadly to humans for thousands of years. While we may get a few years of energy out of a uranium fuel cell, we're stuck with the byproduct forever. For that reason, as well as the remote but real possibility of nuclear accidents (such as Chernobyl and Three Mile Island), the Bush administration may find putting more emphasis on atomic energy a hard sell to the nation and to the environmental community in particular. This makes the work conducted at INEEL all the more important. It's vital — if nuclear energy is to have an acceptable future providing energy for Americans — that renewed research be conducted and cleaner, safer methods of harnessing the atom be found. Bush, however, seems determined to focus on a quick fix to an energy crisis that's inhibiting our ability to power our homes and our vehicles. With Bush and Vice president Cheney making outlandish statements like, "We're not going to conserve our way out of this crisis," we wonder how genuine the the parts of the energy plan that don't deal with fossil fuels really are, including the portion of the plan that deals with expanding the use of nuclear energy. And Bush, while offering tax credits for businesses and industries that use alternative forms of energy such as solar, wind, geothermal, etc., wants to cut the funding into alternative energy research. The message Bush is sending to the American people is convoluted and inconsistent. Of course, Bush and Cheney are both products of the oil industry and it's not surprising that political foes are pointing out flaws. If Bush and Cheney are serious about finding ways to power America well into the future, shouldn't more effort be made to further nuclear research and alternative energy research? After all, if our intent is to reduce American dependency on OPEC oil, wouldn't it make sense to eventually reduce our dependency on oil altogether? ***************************************************************** 5 ASK INCKY Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 8:32 a.m. on Wednesday, May 23, 2001 What current Oak Ridge City Council members were on council when Parcel A development was being determined? According to Jacquelyn Bernard, Oak Ridge city clerk, a Master Development Agreement Plan (which included residential development and development of a golf course) was approved by Oak Ridge City Council on March 21, 1994. Jerry Kuhaida, Will Minter and Pat Rush are the only current council members who were serving on council when that vote was taken. Recently The Oak Ridger reported that the Tennessee Valley Authority will purchase 33 tons of nuclear fuel from the Department of Energy. An article in the News-Sentinel says that DOE will give the fuel to TVA. What's the real deal? TVA tells us that there is no cost to them for transfer of the fuel. However, TVA will pay to process and fabricate the fuel. Where can I find someone to quilt for me? Allison Arnold, owner of the Quilting Corner, says to contact her store at 483-7778 for names. Ask Incky is The Oak Ridger's action line/consumer line column. Initiated to answer questions about the city's incorporation, it now accepts questions on a variety of subjects. It is not a public forum, however. Questions must be submitted with name, address and telephone number. These are never revealed. Call Incky at 482-4959 or send your question in a letter to Incky, P.O. Box 3446, Oak Ridge, Tenn. 37831, or e-mail to oakridge@oakridger.com. All Contents ©Copyright* The Oak Ridger * ***************************************************************** 6 Y-12 could face cuts in workforce The Oak Ridger Online -- Area News -- 05/23/01 by Paul Parson Oak Ridger staff John Mitchell began warning employees this week about the possibility of "involuntary reductions" in the workforce at the Y-12 National Security Complex. Mitchell, president and general manager of BWXT Y-12, which manages the weapons plant for the Department of Energy, has been making the announcement during a series of staff meetings that began Monday and were to conclude today. Though Mitchell would not use the term "layoff," an involuntary reduction is basically a termination or layoff resulting from a changing business or program condition. At one of the staff meetings on Tuesday afternoon, Mitchell cited an internal reorganization as one of the reasons for the possible workforce reduction. He said the plant could end up in a situation in which jobs need to be filled, but workers and the jobs don't match. Mitchell told those attending the Tuesday meeting that the procedure for filling the job would be handled in a "very visible, open and documented process." He added the workforce reduction would happen gradually over the coming months. The jobs possibly affected are those not directly related to what Y-12 produces, according to Mitchell. Mitchell said in the next few weeks he'll be notifying DOE and elected representatives about the number of people possibly affected by the reduction. He declined to give The Oak Ridger a number for publication, but did say a "small percentage" of Y-12's 4,200-person workforce might be impacted. The possibility of a workforce reduction at Y-12 is another sore spot for the local economy. In the last six months alone, several companies have been cutting employees, including: + Manufacturing Sciences Corp., a subsidiary of BNFL Inc., which last week notified 100 people that they were being laid off. + Americ Disc Inc. and Allied-Vaughn Inc., both formerly Allied Digital Technologies Corp.,which last month announced that they were closing, which would impact about 200 people. + UT-Battelle, manager of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, which let around 300 people go in late 2000. All Contents ©Copyright* The Oak Ridger * ***************************************************************** 7 Opinion - OR must continue to focus on the private sector Oak Ridger Online --> Story last updated at 11:15 a.m. on Wednesday, May 23, 2001 Lawrence Young A vibrant Oak Ridge. Can you see it today? Can you envision this community 10 years from now? Fifty years? What do you see in your mind's eye when you imagine the year 2051 in Oak Ridge? I hope you see a community with unlimited horizons. A community with many career opportunities. A community that has leveraged our heritage of technology and innovation for the good of local businesses as well as society in general. That is certainly the vision of CROET, the Community Reuse Organization of East Tennessee. Our task is to help the community transform underutilized government resources into private-sector assets. For the past few years, we've worked closely with the Department of Energy and the Bechtel Jacobs Co. to reclaim valuable building and equipment resources and to make them available to businesses. Our goal is simple: to create jobs and to help keep Oak Ridge vibrant. To date, our efforts have resulted in two quite distinct business parks that are already contributing to Oak Ridge economic development. Horizon Center and Heritage Center -- both part of East Tennessee Technology Park -- offer site location opportunities businesses rarely find, ranging from an upscale business park to a massive brownfield site. Horizon Center was designed with careful attention to the environment and to aesthetics. Covenants require all buildings to feature stacked-stone masonry detail; no metal buildings allowed. Nearly half of the park will be preserved in its natural wooded state, with trails, landscaping and sculpture located throughout. It's an upscale business park of which Oak Ridgers can be proud, especially since it represents the efforts of many, many individuals. In a way, Horizon Center reflects the evolution and transformation of Oak Ridge since the gates were opened more than 50 years ago. Just down Highway 58, Heritage Center is the brownfield site that has already become home to more than 30 companies. As the old K-25 plant is dismantled and cleaned up, valuable resources become available to business. Twenty-seven buildings at Heritage Center are occupied with more than 1,281 employees. Today, an additional 320,000 square feet of office, warehouse and manufacturing space have been reclaimed and are available. And in late 2002, the building called K-33, with 66 acres under one roof, is expected to be available for leasing. These two business parks obviously meet very different site location needs. Horizon Center appeals to companies like Theragenics, the bio-engineering pioneer that committed to its $25 million facility before the park was even completed. Horizon Center tenants will have high aesthetic standards for their location, and most likely will be involved in industries that can leverage the technology generated by our area's scientists and researchers. Heritage Center, on the other hand, appeals to those who are looking for a low-end, basic site with extra benefits such as available equipment and immediately accessible buildings. A few months ago, we received a report from Fluor Global Locations Strategies, one of the country's largest site selection analysts, regarding economic development in Oak Ridge. The professionals analyzed our resources, identified seven target market niches and made recommendations to create additional new jobs in the community. Building a mid-range industrial park was one of the recommendations. According to Fluor's project leader, only a small percentage of companies look for brownfield sites. About 30 percent to 40 percent of companies search for high-end sites; 40 percent to 50 percent need mid-range facilities. These companies generally want 25 to 50 acres, according to Fluor, but they're interested in relatively low levels of capital investment and larger facilities. Automotive suppliers would fit this category, she says, as well as lower-end electronics assembly. New companies that move into Horizon Center may have suppliers who would be perfect tenants for such a mid-range industrial park. We've come a long way since CROET was first established in 1997. But we can't slow down if we want to stimulate a vibrant community. I believe this community needs to be mindful of its strengths and weaknesses, and heed the advice of these objective professionals. Now more than ever, Oak Ridge must maintain its momentum and to continue to refocus on the private sector instead of depending on the public sector. In my opinion, the next logical step is to add a mid-range industrial park to our pool of resources. Lawrence Young is president of the Community Reuse Organization of East Tennessee. All Contents ©Copyright* The Oak Ridger * ***************************************************************** 8 USS Eisenhower at Newport News for refuelling and overhaul 23 May 2001 Newport News Shipbuilding have announced that the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69) arrived at the company for refuelling and overhaul work. The work is scheduled to last approximately three years and will be the ship's one and only refuelling in a 50-year life-span. Eisenhower is the second ship of the Nimitz class to undergo this major life-cycle milestone. The scope of work is valued at approximately $1.5 billion and includes the refuelling of both the ship's reactors, as well as significant modernisation work. Work includes a major upgrade of the island house that will involve the shipyard removing the top two levels of the island house and replacing them. This action is driven by the installation of a new antenna mast that runs down along the island and will provide for better radar capabilities. The shipyard is also integrating a new radar tower aboard Eisenhower. Maintenance and repair work will be performed below the ship's waterline to include the application of a new paint system. In addition, the shipyard will be replacing nearly 3,000 valves and overhauling another 600 in various ship systems. USS Eisenhower was built by Newport News Shipbuilding and christened on October 11, 1975 by Mrs. Mamie Doud Eisenhower, wife of the ship's namesake, President Dwight D. Eisenhower. The US Navy commissioned the ship in 1977. [DSD is published by Defence Data Ltd] Copyright(c) 1996 - 2001 Defence Data Ltd. All rights reserved. Reproduction ***************************************************************** 9 Australia partner in bomb plan, files reveal news.com.au - By SELINA DAY in Perth 23may01 THE Australian government was "a full and active participant" in planned nuclear tests on humans at Maralinga in the 1950s, it has been claimed. Researcher Ann Munslow-Davies said yesterday new Maralinga records showed Australian servicemen were to be used as guinea pigs for British nuclear tests in the late 1950s. She said she was handed the so-called Lighthouse documents six years ago by a nuclear veteran, living in Perth, who had been waiting until "the right time" to release them. "He (was) at the time, and still is, covered by the Secrets Act so he had never looked inside the files," Ms Munslow-Davies said. In Federal Parliament yesterday it was claimed only three members of a group of servicemen used as guinea pigs in nuclear tests at Maralinga had developed cancer. Industry Minister Nick Minchin, representing Veterans Affairs Minister Bruce Scott in the Senate, ruled out special compensation for test veterans. He said the Department of Veterans Affairs had checked its records covering 25 army officers who supposedly received dangerous radiation doses. "Of the 17 for whom we have been able to locate any health records, only three have developed a cancer," the senator said. The new documents revealed the British government planned to move up to 800 troops as close as possible to nuclear explosions. The men, 560 of them Australian, were to occupy networks of trenches dug around the sites of four nuclear tests scheduled for September and October 1959. The top-secret experiment codenamed Operation Lighthouse was called off only when the British, US and Soviet governments agreed a temporary moratorium on all nuclear testing in October, 1958. Ms Munslow-Davies said the records also revealed a directive that all "indoctrinees" be blood tested. "To any medical person that indicates drawing a base line so they can see what the effects are beyond that," she said. ***************************************************************** 10 Researcher calls for Maralinga blood tests There's been a call for all Australian servicemen involved in nuclear tests in the 1950s and 1960s to be blood-tested following revelations that the British government had planned to place hundreds of troops in test zones. New documents show the British government planned to move up to 800 troops as close as possible to nuclear explosions in Australia during the 1950s to test the effects of the bomb. The documents, obtained by a Scottish newspaper, show that the men - 560 of them Australian - were to occupy networks of trenches dug around the sites of four nuclear tests scheduled for September and October 1959 at Maralinga, in the South Australian desert. The top-secret experiment, codenamed Operation Lighthouse, was only called off when the British, US and Soviet governments agreed to a temporary moratorium on all nuclear testing in October 1958. The news follows the British ministry of defence's confirmation earlier this month that two dozen Australian, British and New Zealand soldiers tested protective clothing by crawling, marching or driving through a fallout zone three days after a nuclear test at Maralinga in 1956. Dundee University research fellow Professor Sue Rabbitt Roff, who unearthed the documents about the clothing tests, said it was time the Australian government widened its planned inquiry into the health of test veterans and their children. "They're still relying on a very old-fashioned way of doing things, which is the epidemiological studies, which were very unsatisfactory when they tried it last time, back in the 1980s," Roff told AAP on Monday. "We're saying let's move beyond that to radio-biological studies, where we don't look at statistics and numbers, but we look at actual men and their bodies in order to be able to establish if an individual suffered a particular problem. "By taking the blood and saliva of men, even after 40, 50 years, we'd be able to do much more conclusive studies about whether or not they did suffer exposure and whether that exposure led to ill-health." Such a study would cost about STG1,000 ($A2,730) a man, although the costs would come down once the system was in place, she said. Tens of thousands of servicemen from Australia, New Zealand and Britain were involved in the tests at Maralinga and Christmas Island. Roff said Australian Veterans Affairs Minister Bruce Scott did not contact her during his recent trip to London, where he discussed the clothing tests with British Armed Forces Minister John Spellar. "I am only one hour from London or a 20 pence phone call," she said. "I've tried to submit this material to him directly, but he just fobs me off with politicians' letters." The British ministry of defence confirmed that Operation Lighthouse had been planned but denied that the soldiers were being used as guinea pigs or that the documents were previously unknown. ©AAP 2001 ***************************************************************** 11 Only three Maralinga veterans have cancer: govt Only three members of a group of service personnel used as guinea pigs in nuclear tests during the 1950s had definitely developed cancer, the government said today. Industry Minister Nick Minchin, representing Veterans Affairs Minister Bruce Scott in the Senate, ruled out special compensation for test veterans and said there was nothing new in the latest claims. Senator Minchin said the Department of Veterans Affairs had checked its records covering 25 army officers who supposed received dangerous radiation doses. "Of the 25, the department can confirm that 14 are deceased, 11 are believed to be alive," he told the Senate. "Of the 17 for whom we have been able to locate any health records, only three have developed a cancer." The issue of the use of defence personnel during the nuclear tests arose from recent revelations by British researcher Sue Rabbitt Roff. She unearthed documents describing how a group of soldiers had walked, crawled and been driven through the fallout zone after a nuclear detonation at Maralinga, South Australia in 1956. The idea was to test military clothing to see what type provided best protection against radiation. Australian Democrats nuclear issues spokeswoman Lyn Allison asked whether the government would now provide proper pensions and compensation for veterans and families revealed to have been deliberately exposed to radiation during the nuclear test program in the 1950s and 60s. Senator Minchin said there were a number of avenues for test personnel to be compensated. "They are under the Safety Rehabilitation and Compensation Act of 1988," he said. "Such claims now are administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs under the military compensation and rehabilitation service. "There is also the special administrative scheme administered by the department of industry, science and resources." Senator Minchin said the so-called revelations weren't that new as the relevant documents detailing the clothing trials had been examined by the McClelland Royal Commission in 1984-85. ©AAP 2001 ***************************************************************** 12 Only three Maralinga veterans have cancer: govt Only three members of a group of service personnel used as guinea pigs in nuclear tests during the 1950s had definitely developed cancer, the government said today. Industry Minister Nick Minchin, representing Veterans Affairs Minister Bruce Scott in the Senate, ruled out special compensation for test veterans and said there was nothing new in the latest claims. Senator Minchin said the Department of Veterans Affairs had checked its records covering 25 army officers who supposed received dangerous radiation doses. "Of the 25, the department can confirm that 14 are deceased, 11 are believed to be alive," he told the Senate. "Of the 17 for whom we have been able to locate any health records, only three have developed a cancer." The issue of the use of defence personnel during the nuclear tests arose from recent revelations by British researcher Sue Rabbitt Roff. She unearthed documents describing how a group of soldiers had walked, crawled and been driven through the fallout zone after a nuclear detonation at Maralinga, South Australia in 1956. The idea was to test military clothing to see what type provided best protection against radiation. Australian Democrats nuclear issues spokeswoman Lyn Allison asked whether the government would now provide proper pensions and compensation for veterans and families revealed to have been deliberately exposed to radiation during the nuclear test program in the 1950s and 60s. Senator Minchin said there were a number of avenues for test personnel to be compensated. "They are under the Safety Rehabilitation and Compensation Act of 1988," he said. "Such claims now are administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs under the military compensation and rehabilitation service. "There is also the special administrative scheme administered by the department of industry, science and resources." Senator Minchin said the so-called revelations weren't that new as the relevant documents detailing the clothing trials had been examined by the McClelland Royal Commission in 1984-85. ©AAP 2001 ***************************************************************** 13 Study plays down cancer fears Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Extra chance of death from lung cancer is only 2%, say scientists Special report: depleted uranium Richard Norton-Taylor and Tim Radford Wednesday May 23, 2001 The Guardian British scientists yesterday played down fears of cancer from weapons made of depleted uranium. In a report dismissed by Gulf war veterans as flawed, but accepted by the Ministry of Defence, the scientists said that the weapons could double a soldier's risk of lung cancer later in life but this would only occur if a tank survived a direct hit from armour piercing shells made of the radioactive metal and the soldiers inside the tank ingested up to 5gms of pulverised shell casing. Of 1,000 soldiers caught like that, 123 might expect to die of lung cancer decades later. According to the Royal Society such circumstances were unlikely. More probably, the report said, soldiers in a tank hit by a depleted uranium weapon could expect a 2% extra risk of death from lung cancer - out of 1,000 soldiers in vehicles disabled by depleted uranium shells, 59 might die of lung cancer. And in any population, 58 people in 1,000 died of lung cancer. The report called for more research but effectively ruled out leukaemia as a battlefield hazard: the risk of this was about five in a million for all possible levels of exposure to radiation. Depleted uranium is hard and heavy. and fired at speeds of about a mile a second can punch through a tank's armour. The scientists did not try to link use of the weapons with illnesses of the veterans of the Gulf war in 1991. But the report challenged the MoD to begin systematically monitoring the urine of veterans from the Gulf war and the Balkans. "Without additional measurements, it is not possible to rule out a significantly increased risk of lung cancer in a small group of soldiers who may have been exposed to high levels of DU," said Brian Spratt, of Imperial College school of medicine, who led the team. "Governments who wish to use DU weapons have a responsibility to understand the possible risks... It is essential further information on exposures is obtained from test firing DU shells into armoured vehicles." A second study is due to examine hazards from ingesting DU as a toxic metal. Others on or near the battlefield could be at risk if they handled DU shells, or were exposed to aerosols formed by DU explosions, the scientists said. But the increased risk of cancer in these cases would be very small. The MoD welcomed the report. A spokesman said the view that the extra risk of developing fatal cancers was so small as to be undetectable above the general risk of dying from cancer over a normal lifetime, reflected the MoD's thinking. No British troops had been exposed to the "worst case" scenarios in the Gulf or the Balkans, although there could have been a lower level risk linked with handling DU or contaminated vehicles, or the still lower level risk of dust from DU explosions. The MoD sent the Royal Society its screening programme proposals, including urine testing, biological monitoring in conflicts, and epidemiological studies of Balkans soldiers. But Michael Burrows, of the National Gulf Veterans and Families Association, said: "Veterans did not give evidence and the Royal Society could not have got a complete picture." Many of the Gulf veterans who developed cancer could have been in contact with DU dust from recovered tanks and armoured personnel carriers hit by DU shells. Of more than 2,000 veterans in the association, 20 had developed lung, lymphoma, and leukaemia cancers, he said. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001 ***************************************************************** 14 UK: Report attacks military stand on DU A REPORT published yesterday by senior British scientists stopped just short of criticising the Ministry of Defence's steadfast denial that depleted uranium ammunition might have damaged the health of Gulf and Balkans' war veterans. But the Royal Society said the government had a responsibility to its own soldiers and to the civilians of other countries to establish beyond doubt the human and environmental risks of using the radioactive shells. The report, the first of a two-part independent study, called for more research, saying there was "a lack of scientific evidence about the levels of depleted uranium (DU) that could occur in different situations and the amounts that might be inhaled by a soldier". Fears about the risk to troops arose after six Italian soldiers died of leukaemia last year after exposure to areas in Kosovo and Bosnia where DU had been fired. France, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands and Portugal have also reported increases in cancer rates among soldiers who served as peacekeepers in the Balkans. The RS study, while admitting it does not have conclusive data, says that most soldiers exposed to DU would not absorb high enough amounts to significantly increase their chances of contracting cancer or leukaemia. It adds, however, that anyone inside a vehicle struck by a DU round lucky enough to survive the impact or any potential rescuer of survivors would be exposed to life-threatening doses of radioactive dust and debris. Professor Brian Spratt, presenting the RS report, said: "In such circumstances, and assuming the most unfavourable conditions, the lifetime risk of lung cancer is likely to exceed twice that of the general population. "As a first step towards allaying medical concerns, we would like to see the establishment of a monitoring system for the urine of soldiers exposed to DU. This applies to veterans and to anyone taking part in future conflicts." Smaller shells fired from the Apache helicopter gunship and from A10 Warthog aircraft Gatling guns are also tipped with DU. All of the contamination in Kosovo came from US attacks on Serb armoured columns. These rounds are more likely to fragment on impact, releasing toxic dust into the atmosphere. But after examining sites in Kosovo, both Nato and the World Health Organisation say there is no evidence to link contamination with human illness. The UK scientists want the government to carry out definitive firing tests against armour and to monitor the health of all veterans complaining of symptoms. An MoD spokesman said last night: "No-one denies the theoretical effect of DU but, at the moment, there is no clinical evidence to blame its use for the effects individuals concerned are experiencing. We already have a research programme in place which answers many of the Royal Society's concerns. We will respond more fully to the others after considering their recommendations fully." Tony Flint, regional coordinator of the Gulf Veterans and Families Association, said: "We will examine the RS report and then try to force the MoD to take some sort of action. The British and American governments are blocking moves towards a full, independent inquiry to avoid compensation claims." The second stage of the RS investigation will focus on the environmental impact of DU. *- May 23rd* ***************************************************************** 15 'More research needed' to explore DU cancer link, say UK scientists - Jane's Defence News 22 May 2001 By *janes.com editor* Peter Felstead More research is needed to determine any link between cancer and the use of depleted uranium (DU) ammunition on the battlefield. That is the view of a report by UK scientists at the Royal Society, the first part of which is published today. "A good deal is known scientifically about DU; it is also clear that a good deal remains to be learned," states the report. The material published today by the Royal Society deals with the degrees to which soldiers could be exposed to DU, its radiological effects and the results of epidemiological studies. The second part of the report, still unpublished, will deal with the health effects of DU as a toxic heavy metal along with its environmental impact. DU rounds were used by allied forces in the 1990-91 Gulf War and also in the NATO campaigns in Bosnia and Kosovo. Fears about their potential radioactive effects emerged in January this year when several NATO and European nations began investigating reports of suspicious deaths and illnesses among veterans of the above campaigns. Meanwhile, **reported from this year's , held in Abu Dhabi in March, that Pakistan is joining the small club of nations producing DU rounds for their armed forces. Until now only the USA, UK, France and Russia have acknowledged using DU as the penetrator material in their kinetic energy munitions. (Click here to read the full article) The Pakistani round on display at IDEX was a 125mm armour-piercing fin-stabilised discarding sabot projectile that employs a DU-based long-rod penetrator. It is being developed by the Pakistani National Development Complex for use with Pakistan's Ukrainian-supplied T-80UD main battle tanks. © 2001 Jane's Information Group. All rights reserved ***************************************************************** 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: *****************************************************************