Debate Intensifies on Nuclear Waste

[newyawker99]

RICHLAND, Wash. -- Using the nation's largest and leakiest nuclear waste dump as a backdrop, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) complained last week that the Bush administration is using a "sneaky" legislative maneuver to avoid cleaning up Cold War-era poisons that are tainting groundwater here and oozing into the Columbia River.

"They are trying to create a loophole in the definition of nuclear waste big enough to drive a truck through and leave Washington state to deal with a mess that we don't want," Cantwell said, echoing the worries of state environmental officials who help monitor the federal Hanford Nuclear Reservation here.

Cantwell's complaint will animate a debate expected this week on the Senate floor. She and Sen. Ernest F. Hollings (D-S.C.) plan to lead an effort to strip language out of the defense authorization bill that would allow the Energy Department to leave some radioactive waste in buried tanks -- rather than get it up and ship it off for entombment in Nevada.

The fight over nuclear waste, which involves Washington, Idaho and South Carolina, has slowed debate on the nearly $450 billion annual defense bill, which pays for everything from the Iraq war to multibillion-dollar weapons systems.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7951-2004Jun1.html