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.
Matheson 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 Orrin 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 or 6 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.