Vote on senate nuclear waste bill seen early Oct
Date: 20-Sep-99
Country: USA
A spokesman for Sen. Frank Murkowski, chairman of the Senate Energy and
Natural Resources Committee, said it appeared that action on the Alaska
Republican's bill would "be in early October."
The legislation is aimed at ending years of debate and legal wrangling
over what to do with thousands of tons of highly radioactive spent
nuclear fuel, currently stored at more than 100 commercial nuclear power
plants across the country.
Murkowski's committee has approved the bill, which calls for the
construction later next decade of a permanent nuclear waste repository
at Yucca Mountain, Nev., around 90 miles from Las Vegas.
The Clinton administration opposes the plan, since Murkowski's bill
authorises the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and not the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency, to set a radiation exposure standard
for the proposed repository.
The White House has promised a veto if the final version of the waste
bill, which eventually must be reconciled with a pending House bill,
blocks the EPA from setting the limits.
Murkowski has said repeatedly that the EPA could set exposure limits
that could prohibit storing the spent fuel in the Nevada desert. EPA
insists that it has the expertise and the traditional role for setting
the standard.
A spokesman for the nuclear industry said even with the debate over the
NRC-EPA, the Murkowski bill represents a compromise with the Clinton
administration.
"In general, it is a significant compromise on what the administration
has said that it wanted to see," said Steve Kerekes, spokesman for the
Nuclear Energy Institute.
Nuclear utilities want nuclear waste moved, as the law states, from
their reactor sites to a permanent storage facility. The Murkowski
legislation would have the Department of Energy (DOE) take control of
the waste at reactors until the Yucca Mountain site is ready.
Previously, nuclear utilities and many lawmakers pushed for a temporary
storage site until a permanent one could be constructed. Murkowski
dropped such language from his bill, but the pending House legislation
still calls for an interim site by 2003, a point that is deeply opposed
by the White House.
DOE is exploring whether to confirm Yucca Mountain as the permanent
repository and a final recommendation is due in 2001.