Sent January 12, 2006 Page 1/16
W.S. Adamson and Associates, Inc.
Index
01/12 Provo Senate Minority leader goes on ‘red states’ tour
01/11 KSL Senator Reid in Utah, calls for change
01/11 NEI Bush approves nuke-blocking wilderness area
01/05 Moab Utah, Nevada join forces to stop East dumping nuke waste on the West
01/11 KIFI Republicans react to Reid’s visit to Pocatello
01/12 LVRJ Radioactive waste recycling criticized
01/11 PVT DOE shuts down Yucca Mountain
01/11 Arroyo Supervisors support the study of nuclear waste storage
01/11 PVT Tri Cities contain tough Yucca lessons
01/11 PVT Letter: Nuke classes
01/11 PVT Letter: Let’s incorporate
01/12 Hartford NRC reports on soil testing
01/11 Times Nuclear safety record mixed
01/12 SL Trib Rogue lobbyist had ties to Utah
01/12 City Wkly Whose mine is it?
01/11 U of U ‘Primetime’ exposes U’s nuclear reactor security
01/12 City Wkly MISS: Hustling Reps
Senate Minority leader goes on
'red states' tour
JIM GRAHAM - The Associated Press
DAILY HERALD, LVS, KUTV January 12, 2006
SALT LAKE CITY -- Democrats can win in Republican-dominated states such as Utah by fighting what Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid characterized as GOP corruption in Washington during a stop here on his "red state" tour Wednesday.
Reid, D-Nev., visited Salt Lake City on the tour, which also includes stops in Phoenix, Denver, Pocatello, Idaho, and Omaha, Neb., in an effort to lure rural voters back to the Democratic Party.
He was accompanied in Salt Lake City by U.S. Rep. Jim Matheson, Utah's only Democratic member of Congress. The senator said the Democratic Party lost the 2002 presidential election because it didn't campaign hard enough in rural areas.
"The Democrats became convinced that they could win the general election in the last several decades by campaigning in big cities," Reid said.
Reid also took aim at what he called a Republican "culture of corruption" in Washington, citing the indictment of former House Majority Leader Tom Delay on money laundering and conspiracy charges and lobbyist Jack Abramoff's guilty pleas to charges in a congressional influence-peddling investigation. Republican Party officials, however, noted that Reid accepted $61,000 in contributions from Abramoff's clients, and they demanded Reid return the money.
"It's the height of hypocrisy for Senator Reid to point to this issue when he himself has accepted money from Abramoff's clients," said Tucker Bounds, spokesman for the Republican National Committee in Washington, D.C.
Reid said he did nothing wrong by accepting the money. The money was mostly from American Indian tribes for his work in promoting federal programs important to tribes in Nevada.
He said he carefully reviewed the contributions and found nothing amiss. He accused Republicans of trying to share blame in the Abramoff lobbying scandal.
"Jack Abramoff has been a Republican operative for 30 years," Reid says. "He did not give a single penny to a Democrat."
Reid plans to introduce a series of anti-corruption measures next week in Washington. Although he is withholding details, Reid said the proposal would ban all gifts from lobbyists to members of Congress, require monthly reports listing when lobbyists and federal officeholders meet and increase penalties for members of Congress convicted of corruption.
Such measures, he said, would help restore voters' faith in government, and lure voters to the Democratic Party.
He noted that in the 2002 presidential election, several rural states, including Nevada, gave narrow margins of victory to President Bush. He said Democrats can win key congressional seats in those states in 2006, and score victories in the 2008 presidential race, by talking about honesty in government and about rural issues.
Reid angrily denied a report in The Washington Times newspaper Wednesday that said he is one of five congressional lawmakers whose offices are being probed by the Justice Department in connection with the Abramoff investigation. He criticized the paper, which was founded by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon of the Unification Church.
"You have to really stretch things to call it a newspaper," Reid said.
Reid also raised some eyebrows when he noted a Salt Lake Tribune poll Wednesday that showed 58.6 percent of Utahns approve of how President Bush is handling the war in Iraq, compared with 39 percent nationally.
"It's just backwards from the rest of the country," Reid said. He later clarified his remarks, saying he didn't intend to imply that Utahns are backward in their thinking, but only that the majority of Utahns differ markedly from the rest of the country on the war in Iraq.
Reid tried to allay fears that Utah will become home to a temporary nuclear waste storage facility, proposed for the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation, about 50 miles southwest of Salt Lake City near the Utah Test and Training Range. Private Fuel Storage, a group of utilities, wants to store 44,000 tons of nuclear waste on the site.
But key rail line access to the area was blocked last week when President Bush signed a bill creating the 100,000-acre Cedar Mountain Wilderness Area.
Reid took credit for pushing the measure through Congress, and said the proposal is dead in the water.
"It's not going to happen. ... There's no way the American public is going to allow the most poisonous substance known to man to be transported on our railways and highways, past our businesses, our schools, our homes," he said. [back]
Senator Reid in Utah, Calls for Change
Richard Piatt Reporting KSL- TV 1/11/06
Nevada Senator Harry Reid had strong words about what he calls a 'Culture of Republican corruption' in Washington. Reid was in Salt Lake City today for a Democratic fundraiser.
Senator Reid didn't mince words, and he's doing the same thing in seven 'Red', or conservative, states this week, clearly a tactic to help Democrats in this election year.
Senator Reid plans to continue his campaign throughout the nation. Today he also addressed the nuclear waste issue. He claims at this point that there is no way that waste will get transported to either Nevada or Utah, ever. [back]
Bush approves nuke-blocking
wilderness area
Nuclear Engineering International 11 January 2006
A new US defence policy bill signed by President Bush is set to challenge the development of a spent nuclear fuel storage facility in Utah’s Skull Valley with the creation of a wilderness area in Utah's west desert.
The bill includes a provision to establish a 100,000-acre Cedar Mountain Wilderness Area near the Skull Valley Goshute Indian Reservation which prevents the development of a railway line that would have been used to transport the material to the storage facility.
Developers Private Fuel Storage, an alliance of utility companies, has said that other options are available for transport, including trucking the waste down the Skull Valley Highway. [back]
Utah, Nevada join forces to stop East dumping nuke waste on the West
House Bill introduced by Matheson, Berkley
The Times Independent 01/05/06
Congressman Jim Matheson and Nevada Congresswoman Shelley Berkley have legislation mandating that nuclear waste be stored on-site where it is produced. The measure requires the federal government to take responsibility for possession, stewardship, maintenance and monitoring of the waste.
Mathesen and Berkley are joined on the bill by Nevada Congressmen Jim Gibbons and Jon Porter, as well as Utah Congressmen Chris Cannon and Rob Bishop.
Companion legislation has been introduced in the Senate by Senator Harry Reid, Senator John Ensign, Senator Robert Bennett and Senator Orcin Hatch.
"The West – whether it is Utah's Skull Valley, or Nevada's Yucca Mountain -is not the de facto dumping ground for this lethal material;” said Matheson. "Storing nuclear waste on site is the safest, most reasonable and most effective way of allowing nuclear power plants to continue operating while we search for an appropriate long-term storage solution."
Congresswoman Berkley said, "This legislation will keep radioactive garbage out of Nevada, out of Utah and off of America's roads and railways. That is good news for Nevadans and for the millions of families living along nuclear waste .transportation routes that face the threat of an accident or terrorist attack involving one of these shipments.”
Matheson said that under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, the government has focused only on the proposed Yucca Mountain site as a central repository for spent nuclear fuel rods. As scientific, falsified documentation, transportation and other problems with Yucca Mountain have raised doubts that Yucca will open, companies have proposed a private storage facility on the Goshute Indian Reservation in Utah's west desert."
“Dry cask storage – the method proposed by Private Fuel Storage in Skull Valley -is currently being used at 33 nuclear power plants around the country. As approved by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, dry cask containers can safely store waste for at least 100 years. We should not subject citizens to the dangers posed by transporting it through their communities when it can remain where it is,” said Matheson.
"Yucca Mountain is far too dangerous and far too expensive to ever be completed. Dry cask storage is a proven technology that is already in use, and all sides agree that waste can be securely isolated in these containers for the next century,” Berkley said. "Dry cask storage also eliminates the need for decades of nuclear waste shipments that would be required under the Yucca Mountain scenario. Once enacted, our plan will increase national security, decrease the risk to public safety and Will save billions of dollars that are now being wasted on efforts to turn Nevada into the nation's nuclear garbage dump."
Summary of the Spent Nuclear Fuel On-Site Storage Security Act of 2005 Amends the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 as follows:
· Requires commercial nuclear utilities to transfer nuclear waste from spent nuclear fuel pools into dry storage casks within 6 years after enactment or6 years after the waste is produced. whichever comes first.
· Requires the Department of Energy (DOE) to take title to all spent nuclear fuel currently in on-site dry cask storage within 30 days of enactment.
· Requires the spent nuclear fuel on-site storage sites and storage casks to comply with NRC regulations.
· Requires the Department of Energy to take title to, and full responsibility for, the waste at the reactor sites after it has been transferred to dry cask storage in compliance with regulations-
· Expenditures from the Nuclear Waste Fund will compensate utilities for expenses associated with transferring and storing the waste. [back]
Republicans React to Reid's Visit to Pocatello
KIFI - News Idaho Falls, Pocatello, Blackfoot, Jackson
January 11, 2006
United States Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D- Nev.) is in Pocatello Wednesday night.
The Neveda Democratic Senator's stop is part of a "red-state" tour. He is mainly talking in states that have a strong Republican hold.
His office says his message is intended to make the case to voters that Democrats will restore honest leadership to Washington, D.C.
However, his message may not be well received because of his connection with Jack Abromoff, the lobbyist that pleaded guilty to several federal charges.
In a letter released today by the Idaho Republican Party, Chairman Kirk Sullivan says that Senator Reid is coming to our state to peddle his culture of obstruction.
A member of the Bannock County Republican Party agrees with Sullivan’s opinion of Reid.
“He talks about a culture of corruption within the Republican Party,” said Craig Parrish. “You know, he got over $60,000 from Mr. Abramoff, and he's not giving it back. So talking about other peoples' corruption – you better clean your house first.”
Parrish also criticized Reid's stance against the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository. He says failure to open that site will severely impact jobs at the Idaho national laboratory. [back]
Radioactive waste recycling criticized
Yucca Mountain needed, industry officials say
By TONY BATT STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
Jan. 12, 2006 Las Vegas Review-Journal
WASHINGTON -- Reprocessing and other alternatives to the storage of nuclear waste may be a diversion, and the Department of Energy should remain focused on developing a repository at Yucca Mountain, nuclear industry executives were told Wednesday.
"We can't allow long-term technology to divert us from our goal for central storage," said Steven Kraft, director of used fuel management at the Nuclear Energy Institute.
Kraft said prospects for new nuclear power plants are improving and he would not be surprised if the United States has 20 new plants by 2025. There has not been an order for a new nuclear power plant in the United States since December 1978.
Even if reprocessing is successful and the amount of nuclear waste is reduced, permanent disposal of some spent fuel still would be necessary at Yucca Mountain, northwest of Las Vegas, Kraft said at an annual meeting sponsored by the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management.
Jay Silberg, an attorney representing nuclear power utilities, said recycling nuclear waste is attractive to Congress because it's still uncertain when Yucca Mountain will begin storing radioactive spent fuel.
"There's not much you can do for recycling (nuclear waste) on $50 million," Silberg said, referring to $50 million in the $450 million budget for Yucca Mountain in 2006.
Chris Kouts, an Energy Department analyst who works on the Yucca Mountain project, said the department plans to submit a recycling plan to Congress by March 31.
Kraft and Silberg criticized legislation introduced last month by Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., that would explore alternatives to Yucca Mountain.
Among other things, the bill would require utilities to move spent fuel into above-ground steel and concrete reinforced casks within six years after the waste is removed from reactors and placed in cooling pools.
Silberg said it would take money away from Yucca Mountain. "Hopefully, it will die a short, painless death," he said.
Reid spokeswoman Tessa Hafen said the bill is a realistic alternative to Yucca Mountain and would update security at nuclear reactor sites.
"The cost of Yucca Mountain is approaching $100 billion, and Senator Reid believes too much money has been wasted on the project," Hafen said. [back]