Jeremy L. Dillon
RW Monitor
6/12/2015
Nevada should not waste the opportunity to participate in a conversation on safeguards and other potential benefits relating to Yucca Mountain, Nye County Nevada Commissioner Dan Schinhofen wrote to Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval (R) late last week. Sandoval recently sent a letter to House lawmakers saying the state is unwilling to negotiate on Yucca Mountain. Nye County, though, sees it as an opportunity for the state to gain even more from the federal government. “Our concern is that Nevada be accorded the opportunity to participate in safeguard activities and receive benefits and compensation,” Schinhofen wrote. “That can only happen if Nevada takes advantage of the opportunity to negotiate with the federal government. This opportunity should not be ignored lest a favorable window of opportunity be lost to the state.”
Schinhofen argued that, as evident in the CEUSP MOU that the state and the Department of Energy agreed upon, the state “ought to at least investigate what congress is willing to concede to garner Nevada’s support for a repository.” The CEUSP material is comprised of 403 canisters material in DOE’s inventory of uranium-233 being stored at Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s aging Building 3019. DOE had originally planned to complete the first CEUSP shipments in 2013, but protests from the state caused delays. Issues of concern that were addressed in the DOE-Nevada MOU, which was announced late last year, included a look at the Nevada National Security Site waste acceptance criteria, low-level waste classification, and transportation concerns.
House Bill Could Provide Benefits to Nevada
House lawmakers have suggested a bill could be introduced by the end of the summer that would incentivize the state to participate in the project by offering economic benefits and infrastructure improvements. Rep. John Shimkus (R-Ill.), one of the most vocal pro-Yucca advocates in Congress, has led the charge for re-starting the Yucca Mountain project by calling on the state to voice concerns and possible motivations that could interest the state into hosting the project. In an op-ed appearing in the Las Vegas Review-Journal in April, Shimkus wrote, “If Nevada becomes a willing partner with the federal government to host a permanent repository, the state would benefit from the return of thousands of high-paying jobs and infrastructure projects necessary to move the shipments of spent fuel and defense materials to the mountain without intersecting population centers.”
The House Energy and Water Appropriations bill for Fiscal Year 2016, which passed last month, included $175 million reserved for Yucca Mountain, of which $150 million would go to the Department of Energy and $25 million to the NRC. On the Senate side, Energy and Water Appropriations Subcommittee Chair Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) has voiced his support for Yucca Mountain, and has said that in conjunction with interim storage, funding for the project could make the Senate’s final appropriations legislation for next year. However, no funding for Yucca Mountain was included in the Senate version of the bill, which still needs a floor vote.
State Against Any Yucca Talk
Nevada, though, has argued that the site does not meet scientific standards, and the state has raised approximately 300 contentions to the Yucca license application. Sandoval, meanwhile, wrote to House lawmakers on May 21 to voice the state’s unwillingness to discuss anything related to opening Yucca Mountain. “You and other Members have recently expressed sentiments regarding a potential quid pro quo negotiation for economic benefits in exchange for construction of the project,” Sandoval wrote. “As I have previously stated, because Yucca Mountain is an unsafe place for a repository and one selected in 1987 for purely political reasons, there is nothing for Nevada to negotiate.”
Nye County argued late last week that making any assumptions about the viability of the project before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission completes its license application process would prove to be imprudent by the state. “Nye County and eight other Nevada counties have passed resolutions asking that the Yucca Mountain License Application process proceed so as to ascertain whether or not your aforementioned claim is valid,” Schinhofen said in his letter. “If you are correct, and the science is not valid, Nye County will stand with you in opposition. However, until such time as that process has run its course, it would be imprudent to turn a blind eye to what could be a very significant economic development opportunity for Nevada and the southwest United States, not to mention the possibility that government may prove itself capable of solving the difficult task of nuclear waste management.”
