Thursday, August 05, 2004
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

Nevadans worry NRC biased about repository

WASHINGTON -- Nevada officials are troubled by a Nuclear Regulatory Commission attorney who spoke in defense of the Energy Department at a hearing last week on the Yucca Mountain Project.

NRC lawyers and staff members are required to act in an impartial manner as they prepare to weigh a license application to build a nuclear waste repository 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

But NRC staff attorney Mitzi Young crossed the line in favor of the Energy Department, said Bob Loux, executive director of the state's Agency for Nuclear Projects.

Loux sent a letter Tuesday to NRC General Counsel Karen Cyr, asking her to investigate whether agency staffers are being pressured to tilt in favor of the project.

"Any small hope the state of Nevada had that the NRC staff would be an independent evaluator of the DOE's license application in the Yucca Mountain proceeding vanished" Loux said, when Young made her presentation to a three-judge panel hearing the agency's first repository dispute July 27.

Young told the administrative judges that, in the view of NRC staff, Nevada failed to make a case when it charged the department violated requirements for an online database of Yucca Mountain technical documents. Young said the Energy Department's efforts to build the database were satisfactory and met "good faith" standards.

Young's comments appeared to take the judges by surprise. Judge Thomas Moore said it appeared contrary to her view last year. Moore and Judges Alan Rosenthal and Alex Karlin indicated Nevada had a legitimate complaint. A decision is pending.