Remarks to the Midwest Council of Statements Radioactive Materials Transportation Committee

Yucca Mountain - "A Blueprint for Progress" October 26, 2005 - Okemos, Michigan

God morning. Thank you for the invitation to address your organization today.

I represent my State of Maine on the Eastern Region Council of State Governments' Northeast High-Level Radioactive Waste Transportation Task Force, a counterpart of this august committee.

I am delighted to be here to share a few comments, some perspectives and to frame, hopefully a bubbling-up of activities from the States for a call of accountability and Federal action.

I am honored to be serving with South Carolina Public Utilities Commissioner David Wright as Co-Chairs of the Yucca Mountain Task Force.

Commissioner Wright is a Republican, I am a Democrat. I come from a small State with a closed plant and a lesser amount of waste in the over all calculates of accumulating nuclear spent fuels (60+4/1, 434-600mtu). Commissioner Wright represents a State with the largest amassment of U.S. DOE, U.S. Origin Foreign Spent Fuels and Foreign nuclear fuels, all in the name of global national security, as well as our own U.S. security.

Additional, Public Utility Commissioners LeRoy Koppendrayer; Minnesota, and Robert Garvin, Wisconsin, serve as vice-chairs.

The Yucca Mountain Task Force is a joint, bipartisan, national grassroots initiatives of the Nuclear Waste Strategy Coalition, U.S. Transport Council, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Decommissioning Plant Coalition, Native American tribal representatives, a growing number of other organizations that collectively represents State organizations, State Regulatory Authorities, nuclear utilities, thousands of business interests and millions of American energy consumers.

We have individuals who have served in every Administration including the Carter Administration through the current Bush Administration, either on board as part of the YMTF or working in parallel with us, participating in conference calls, strategy sessions, Capitol Hill meetings, as well as, Departmental and Administration meetings, both of which we have been undertaking for the past months with House and Senate members, their staff and staff on the appropriate committees.

Our objective: complete the review, the construction, and initiate the operation of a safe, secured federal facility for the spent fuels and the high-level radioactive waste at the Congressionally designated national repository site, Yucca Mountain site, in the State of Nevada.

And, to do so in the most efficient time frame possible, consistent with all of the appropriate assurances of more than adequate safeguards for public health, safety, and security for all Americans, including our citizens in Nevada, as well as, our citizens in every State in which Spent Fuel and high-level radioactive waste are currently being housed awaiting Federal action, as well as, in every State through which it has been, and will be transported.

To this end, we were pleased to be a co-operating participant of the U.S. Transport Council's third annual Summit on the Yucca Mountain program and sharing the goals of laying out a "Blueprint for Progress."

It is crystal clear we are at a pivotal period for the Yucca Mountain project. Our national interests, our economic interests, driven by energy, are going through one of its most significant transformation in better than a half a century, since the start of the commercial nuclear power age itself, maybe in seventy years. We are at a place similar to the transformation our country when a president stepped forward and led a nation, as FDR did, with the Rural Electrification Act in 1936, when that Administration committed the national to a new era by laying out a blueprint for accessible and affordable electricity for all Americans, which in turn drove a nation to greatness.

We are an electrified nation. We are a beast that consumes to produce. The nation's economic and environmental debates, and as significant, our national security interests are paramount in any discussion of energy.

Energy and energy security, national security, and economic factors all require a mandate for a new age of energy and sources, but to do so, also require us, as a nation, to address some of the lingering issues of the current age. In the nuclear discussion, a national federal repository, a national solution for spent fuels and high-level radioactive waste is paramount. It was a necessity that was first recognized in the birth of the commercial nuclear age in early 1950's, it was urgent when the Nuclear Waste Policy Act was enacted, and today, it may be the stumbling incompletion that frustrate those who want a new age of nuclear power to shed our dependency on foreign oil, or who's goal may be lessening of Air pollutants, a lessening of CO2.

Whatever your belief may be, more than ever, our critical national security interests compel the consolidation of spent fuel and high-level waste into a single centralized federal facility. Those who advocate that utilities be responsible for the continued hodgepodge of storage of materials at 125 different sites in 39 different States, particularly in the case of totally decommissioned plants, are irresponsible NIMBY-atics.

Four years after September 11th, one need not look any further than the location of America's nuclear power plants. Each is sited on America's coast or on a major water way, as are our industrial and population centers. I understand nearly 165 million Americans live within fifty miles of a nuclear facility.

Let me make it clear, we believe nuclear plants and the independent spent fuels storage installations are safe, we believe they are secured. We believe the citizens adjacent to these facilities need not be fearful, but we also believe they can made safer, and, they can be more secured. They can be better protected in a more economical approach if they are centralized in a more remote and arid region. This is just common sense.

Given the economics of escalating costs for foreign crude, and the growing dependency on unsecured supplies in a region with insecure leaders, foreign oil is an un-sustainable option for our country not only in the short-term, but for our long-term national security. We must reduce this habitual dependency that is controlled and regulated by foreign interests.

These vulnerabilities, as well as a litany of others, which have been made even more transparent in the wake of 9/11 and our more recent national disasters in the Gulf States requires a broader dialogue of whether this nation is going to step up to the plate and resolve many of these questions or, are we as a nation going to pass this off to a future generation, like a number of other difficult decisions are now being deferred. If we do not do it, we do not deserve the benefits of the rewards of our current consumptions of resources.

A few weeks ago, the NuStart utility consortium announced its intention to proceed with applications for combined construction and operating licenses for new nuclear plants at the Grand Gulf Nuclear Station, Mississippi and the Bellefonte Nuclear Plant in Alabama. This is the first such action in thirty years with respect to nuclear energy plants. Neither site has a final commitment to build. But, with progress on Yucca Mountain, we may well not see any new generation of nuclear plants in the United States.

The fact is that the Federal government has a longstanding, overdue, outstanding contract with the American people for the creation of a permanent national federal repository facility. American electricity consumers have invested an estimated $25 billion dollars in their national solution, your States, the Midwest region has contributed over $7 billion, 28.2% of the national fund. Illinois alone has contributed 12.4% of the NWF.

Just three years ago the U.S. House and Senate overwhelmingly reaffirmed their national accord with the American people to ratify the licensing and development of the Yucca Mountain repository. Subsequently Congress has not reversed, only affirmed, the direction this nation was taken sixty years ago.

Yet, shortly after the establishment of NWF every Administration, every Congress, has "liberated" the annual collections for other purposes. It has almost been treated as free monies. Oh, ya, they put a chip in the till, an IOU that will be paid when they, some future Congress, some future Administration get caught in the call-in on the chip.

Well, the day may be sooner than most of them expect. The avalanche of lawsuit bought on because of the Federal government's inability to honor their contracts or meet their own schedules has cost the American ratepayer/taxpayers an additional $38 B to $61 B in additional costs according to one estimate for interim storage. These are the same Americans who already paid for disposal when they use the electricity, second time when Independent Spent Fuel Installations were built, and who may be forced to be required to pay a third time to when the Court requires the Department of Energy to pay damages for their failure.

The Yucca Mountain Task Force is committed to working with the Congress, Secretary Bodman and the White House, with Republicans and Democrats alike, with the shared determination to resolve long-standing funding, regulatory and licensing needs. The national interests demands that we get on with this job. We are confident that the proper coalition of national and state organizations represented in this room can and will successfully serve as a catalyst to this end.

For this perspective of the Yucca Mountain Task Force, there are five critical path issues in our "Blueprint for Progress," as follows:

Obtaining a comprehensive funding solution for Yucca Mountain licensing and development that ensures both necessary funding and full appropriation of the more than $750 M collected annually from nuclear energy consumers. (We support full accountability with Congressional oversight of the expenditures of the collections from the American ratepayers.)
Facilitating timely development of a final Yucca Mountain radiation standard.
Encouraging the U.S. Department of Energy to submit a high-quality licensing application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in a timely manner.
Fostering and encouraging exemplary standards of quality assurance, accountability and integrity in the activities of the Yucca Mountain program.
Facilitating a national Yucca Mountain transportation and waste acceptance system - along with enhanced stakeholder outreach, particularly along the corridor states.

Given the inherent challenges in this Blueprint, some may question whether these objectives is achievable in our lifetimes. After all, in the nearly forty years the Government has been actively pursuing a national solution, for high-level radioactive waste and spent nuclear fuels, we have lost at least 14 years of schedule by slippage (and maybe as much as two decades,) and billions of dollars expended with questionable tangible progress.

All the hand wringing and Monday-morning quarterbacking aside, as we gather here today we have cause to be guardedly optimistic about the future of the Yucca Mountain program with the caveat that the clock is clearly clicking and the ball is in play on the sixteen blocks from the White House to the Forrestal Building to the Capitol.

There are a number of sound reasons for this conclusion on many fronts:

Money: if we can enact a comprehensive "funding fix" that ensures full appropriation of the $750 M collected annual from nuclear energy consumers, this amount coupled with a minimal $300 M annually from the defense waste fund, which is a real figure, would provide a billion dollars annually for construction and operation.

And, of course, if we add in the $13 billion plus of the nuclear waste fund, there is sufficient money to complete the commitment we have been promise by our government through out the nuclear age. Irrespective of the monies owed by both Republicans and Democratic Administration, enough monies are raised each and every year to complete this project in this decade. But, we can not continue to waste resources and time by inaction.

Radiation Protection Standard: Enactment of a new radiation protection standard is a key piece of this puzzle and the Environmental Protection Agency has given every indication that they're serious about promulgating a new standard as early as late this year or early in 2006. While any post-ten thousand-year standard is daunting, I think we can applaud the EPA's seriousness of purpose and efficiency in moving forward on this key element for any license.

Transportation readiness & waste acceptance preparedness: There's not a lot to say here. The exemplary and outstanding safety record of millions of miles and thousands of shipments speaks loud and clear. Make no mistake, this is not a fantasy. High-level radioactive waste and spent fuels has been - can be and will be safely shipped across this great nation with the American people safe and secured despite some fear mongers cries of impending horrors. Government and utilities have demonstrated that they can safely package spent fuel and that they are prepared for any transport campaign scenario.

Licensing: The successful licensing of the Private Fuel Storage facility is a key leading indicator that demonstrates that an away-from-reactor-facility, essentially the key components of the initial Yucca Mountain surface facility, can be licensed for 40 years for storage of the near 40,000 metric tons of fuel already produced. Clearly the NRC is up-to-the-job and has identified the issues and resources to move forward on an application when a new, now-in-progress DOE licensing strategy unfolds.

Accountability and Quality: The US Geologic Survey incident was unfortunate but much needed wake-up call for the OCRWM program. We can be encouraged that Secretary Bodman has taken this quality issues seriously, as well as, the lack of accountability of the program. He has personally involved himself, and has put new management in place. He's conducted a top-to-bottom review. The end result will be stronger program, improved culture and the turning of the corner on this issue this Fall or Winter.

In short, we are guardedly optimistic about the future of the Yucca Mountain project. We believe there is the collective leadership at the White House, the Department and Energy and the Congress for the enactment of a comprehensive funding fix, for the promulgation of a final radiation protection standard and for the successful implementation of licensing and development requirements for the Yucca Mountain Project. We do not know, however, if there is the collective will to move forward despite national disasters and distractions.

Congressman David Hobson, R-OH, Chairman of the Energy & Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee, speaking at the U.S.T.C. Summit raised concern as to whether either Congress or the White House has the will with so many distractions. At that time it was "just" a series of national disaster, a War, a little money problem here and there. Now we need to aid in focusing on key players and all members of Congress that they need to reassure this great nation they can be multi-tasked, that they can chew gum and walk, that they can address a wide range of issues with commitment and dedication and keep faith with the American public. Promises made are promises that need to be fulfilled, especially when they have already been paid for.

It is clear that there are compelling national security, energy security and economic considerations that warrant expeditious completion of the Yucca Mountain project as mandated by the Nuclear Waste Policy Act. Electric utility consumers have invested billions of dollars to this end. Time and time again, in 1982, 1987, 1992 and 2002 the various Congresses have overwhelming reaffirmed their commitment to a national federal facility to spent fuel and high-level radioactive waste. We must have the resolve to move forward and we can hope that the collective wisdom and energy of this Summit can be a catalyst. This nation must meet its responsibility for the safe, secure stewardship of its 40 year use of civilian nuclear energy and post-World War II national security infrastructure that has kept the world safe and enabled America to remain the lone superpower, not only militarily, but economically as well.

The YMTF believes that the Yucca Mountain project is a pro-American proposal. We believe the Yucca Mountain project needs to be a pro Nevada proposal as well. We believe Nye County, home of Yucca Mountain, local governments have needs that have to be addressed and that the U.S. Government must extend a responsible pro-Nevada proposal in exchange for the utilitization of the Federal lands in their State in addressing this national discussion.

We would welcome participation by each of your States in advocating proper Federal action. Please join us in our

Thank you for your attention.

SITE INFORMATION

Remarks to the Midwest Council of Statements Radioactive Materials Transportation Committee

Yucca Mountain - "A Blueprint for Progress" October 26, 2005 - Okemos, Michigan