Clean Water Action * Environmental Action Foundation * Friends of the

Earth * League of Women Voters of the United States * Military

Production Network * Nuclear Information and Resource Service *

Physicians for Social Responsibility, Washington, D.C. * Project on

Government Oversight * Public Citizen * Safe Energy Communications

Council * Sierra Club * 20/20 Vision * Union of American Hebrew

Congregations * Office for Church in Society - United Church of Christ

* United Methodist General Board of Church and Society * U. S. Public

Interest Research Group

OPPOSE H.R. 1020

SUPPORT AN INDEPENDENT REVIEW OF RADIOACTIVE WASTE POLICY

November 8, 1995

Dear Representative:

We are writing to urge your opposition to H.R. 1020, the Nuclear Waste

Policy Act of 1995. This ill-conceived piece of legislation cleared

the Commerce Committee in August and is likely to come before the full

House shortly. Instead, please support legislation to create an

independent commission to conduct a comprehensive review of the

nation's nuclear waste policy.

As a diverse collection of groups with a variety of constituencies and

interests, we have differing views on the wisdom of nuclear power and

the best means to cope with the highly toxic, long-lived wastes

generated by commercial and defense-related nuclear activities. H.R.

1020, however, contains provisions that offend a common principle. We

believe that the nation's nuclear waste policy should have a

fundamental focus on the protection of public health and safety. The

bill discards this simple priority in favor of the desires of nuclear

utilities. H.R. 1020 would ignore the need for strong health and

environmental protections, full public participation, and sensitivity

to issues of environmental justice to create a program that slashes

standards and uses unreasonable timetables to force an unwilling host

to accept an unnecessary nuclear waste facility and an entire nation

to bear the risks of the largest nuclear waste transportation

enterprise in history.

The Department of Energy (DOE) is currently conducting tests at Yucca

Mountain in Nevada to determine whether the site is suitable to host a

repository for the nation's high-level nuclear waste. These activities

are directed by the 1982 Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA) and its 1987

amendments, which named, over vigorous Nevada objections, Yucca

Mountain as the only candidate for a permanent repository. While the

NWPA allows the construction of an interim storage facility for

nuclear waste, the state of Nevada may not be the host. This

prohibition is essential to ensuring the credibility of site

suitability studies at Yucca Mountain.

The NWPA envisioned a repository by 1998. Because the earliest

possible opening date has slipped to 2010, the nuclear industry, faced

with a public relations problem as waste accumulates at reactors, is

pressing the government to create an "interim" storage facility to

accept waste in 1998. H.R. 1020 would override current restrictions

and force placement of the facility near Yucca Mountain in 1998.

Regardless of one's opinion of the wisdom of either a repository or an

interim storage facility, any policy to implement either idea must be

characterized by honest scientific studies and high standards for

public health and safety. H.R. 1020 is woefully lacking in both

respects.

The DOE will decide whether Yucca Mountain is a technically suitable

repository site in 1998. Several outstanding scientific and technical

issues remain to be addressed before this determination is made, yet

H.R. 1020 would mandate that an interim facility be operational near

Yucca Mountain in 1998. There is no technical reason to place such a

facility in Nevada. Indeed, with most reactors east of the Mississippi

River, Nevada is an odd location for "temporary" storage. Placing an

interim facility there only makes sense if a repository is to be

located at Yucca Mountain. Doing so before a determination is made on

Yucca Mountain's suitability as a repository would cast serious doubt

on the study's integrity.

H.R. 1020 would also gut environmental and public safety standards.

For example, the legislation would prohibit the Environmental

Protection Agency from issuing radiation release standards for the

repository, as current law directs, and would instead set a lax

exposure standard associated with one excess cancer death for every

285 individuals exposed over a lifetime. Other provisions attempt to

ignore potential problems that could arise over a repository's

10,000-year regulatory life. In issuing a repository license, for

example, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) is directed to assume

that no human intrusion shall ever occur upon the repository.

Considering the vast changes seen in the last century, let alone the

last 10,000 years, evading consideration of such a potentially

dangerous problem is dubious policy. In fact the 10,000-year standard

is already weak since much of the radioactive waste will remain toxic

for hundreds of thousands of years.

Licensing the interim facility would be even easier. H.R. 1020 would

allow the DOE to commence interim storage construction simply by

submitting a license application. To further ease construction, the

legislation exempts site selection, license application, and

construction from the Environmental Impact Statement that would be

required by the National Environmental Policy Act. While the NRC can

halt construction, it need not approve it.

Another serious shortcoming of H.R. 1020 is its use of deadlines,

which places decisions that should be subject to debate, planning, and

study on arbitrary timetables. While beneficial for the nuclear

industry, reliance on unforgiving deadlines is not rational policy in

service of public health or safety.

The deadline-driven policymaking of H.R. 1020 would also imperil

citizen participation in nuclear waste decisions. The NRC has

testified that it would be unable to license an interim storage

facility in the 16 months demanded by the legislation and still allow

a public hearing for the process.

H.R. 1020's deadlines would exacerbate the risks of the bill's most

far-reaching short-term impact -- the largest nuclear waste

transportation enterprise in history. Nuclear utilities have already

discharged approximately 30,000 metric tons of irradiated fuel,

containing over 95 percent of the nation's waste radioactivity. By the

year 2030, the tonnage will rise to over 80,000. Serious safety issues

require consideration before embarking on a plan to transport so much

of so deadly a material to a remote location.

First of all, current safety standards fail to incorporate the full

range of trauma to which a cask of radioactive fuel may be exposed in

an accident. Heat standards, for example, are below the temperature at

which diesel fuel burns. Worst of all, regulations do not even require

testing of full-scale models to ensure compliance. In combination with

an increased number of accidents, resulting from the high number of

shipments and the long journeys to Nevada from eastern reactors, these

regulatory shortcomings will create significant risks for millions of

Americans. Few communities are currently equipped to respond to the

challenges presented by a nuclear waste transport accident.

We are also concerned that the risks of transportation are not

equitably distributed. Nevada, for example, has no nuclear plants and

derives no benefit from nuclear power. Furthermore, as host of

numerous atomic tests during the Cold War era that contaminated the

air with fallout and left a considerable amount of waste in need of

cleanup, the state has certainly borne more than its fair share of the

atomic age's burdens already.

Nevada, while being asked to make the greatest sacrifice, would hardly

be alone in feeling the effects of H.R. 1020. Forty-two other states,

several of which are also without commercial nuclear reactors, are

likely to bear the impact of transportation of high-level waste to

Nevada.

Many of the expected transportation routes run through or near urban

and impoverished areas that are already disproportionately subject to

environmental risk from various polluting activities. Those along the

routes will bear more than the risk of accidents. Even routine

transportation of high-level waste causes radiation exposure to those

close to the casks. While the actual levels may be considered low,

large populations will bear the attendant risk, magnifying the impact.

H.R. 1020 would jeopardize public health and safety for no reason

other than to appear to "solve" a vexing public relations problem for

nuclear utilities. Meanwhile, American taxpayers will assume a large

financial liability for the nuclear waste. The interim facility

envisioned by H.R. 1020 will do nothing to curtail risks for residents

of areas surrounding operating nuclear power plants, as every reactor

will necessarily remain a high-level waste site so long as it

continues to split atoms.

Instead of the quick-fix mentality predominant in this bill, we need a

scientifically sound approach to the problem of radioactive waste. The

nation's waste dilemma extends beyond the uncertainties surrounding

the Yucca Mountain program. Irrational classifications, unrealistic

deadlines, and insensitivity to public concerns have also complicated

efforts to address the accumulation of low-level and defense-related

radioactive wastes. For this reason, we urge you to support a

comprehensive independent review of the nation's radioactive waste

policy. The nation has never engaged in such a review. Since the

passage of the original Nuclear Waste Policy Act, much has been

learned about the challenges posed by all aspects of radioactive waste

disposal. Conducting a review now offers the best opportunity to apply

the lessons of the past decade to the question of which disposal or

storage options to pursue in coming years. Fortunately, there is time

to conduct a thorough review. NRC policy states that irradiated

nuclear fuel may remain safely at reactor sites for up to 100 years.

In opposing H.R. 1020, we are not expressing a consensus opinion

against ever centralizing storage of nuclear waste. Our concern is

rather with the timing, motives, and potential consequences of the

effort embodied by the bill. Rushing to pass H.R. 1020 would subject

millions of Americans to needless risk. In contrast, an independent

review offers the best chance to develop a coherent radioactive waste

policy that unites sound science and public participation to protect

the health and safety of all Americans.

For more information, contact Michael Grynberg at Public Citizen at

546-4996.

Sincerely,

Bill Magavern

Director, Critical Mass Energy Project

Public Citizen

Michael Mariotte

Executive Director

Nuclear Information and Resource Service

Danielle Brian

Executive Director

Project on Government Oversight

Brent Blackwelder

President

Friends of the Earth

Thom White Wolf Fassett

General Secretary

United Methodist General Board of Church and Society

Charles McCollough

Office for Church in Society - United Church of Christ

Maureen Eldredge

Program Director

Military Production Network

Rabbi Lynne Landsberg

Associate Director, Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism

Union of American Hebrew Congregations

Daniel Becker

Director, Energy and Global Warming Program

Sierra Club

Becky Cain

President

League of Women Voters of the United States

Anna Aurilio

Staff Scientist

U. S. Public Interest Research Group

James Adams

Senior Analyst

Safe Energy Communications Council

Robin Caiola

Co-Director

20/20 Vision

Robert K. Musil

Executive Director

Physicians for Social Responsibility Washington, D.C.

Paul Schwartz

Public Policy Advocate

Clean Water Action

Margaret Morgan-Hubbard

Executive Director

Environmental Action Foundation