Yucca foes Reid, Domenici said to be in talks over nuke bill

[jpak]

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/sun/2005/oct/11/519492881.html

WASHINGTON -- Could it be true?

Are Yucca Mountain's biggest opponent in the Senate and one of its biggest supporters working together on a nuclear waste bill that would shift the focus away from Yucca?

The trade publication Energy Daily reported Thursday that Yucca's chief antagonist, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Energy Committee Chairman Pete Domenici, R-N.M., were discussing Reid's legislation that would require the Energy Department to take ownership of nuclear power plant waste and store it at the plants indefinitely.

The paper said another point of discussion may focus on the development of a U.S. reprocessing program, in which plutonium and uranium from spent nuclear fuel rods would be recycled to create new fuel, theoretically decreasing the amount of waste that would be stored at Yucca.

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[genius]

1. And why can't Iran do this without incurring a U.S. invasion?

[struggle4progress]

2. Critics attack EPA's Yucca Mountain radiation exposure limits

10/11/2005

<snip> "This rule is a transparent attempt to accommodate the industry," Arjun Makhijani, a nuclear physicist who has been critical of the Yucca project, told reporters on a conference call a day ahead of an Environmental Protection Agency hearing on draft regulations.

"In the proposed EPA rule, every norm of radiation protection that has been established for the general public since the late 1950s ... is to be thrown overboard," Makhijani said. <snip>

The 350 millirem level is "an extremely unacceptable risk," said Dr. Robert M. Gould, chairman of Physicians for Social Responsibility's security committee. <snip>

http://www.azdailysun.com/non_sec/nav_includes/story.cfm?storyID=117042