Friday, February 25, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
Panel lets DOE keep job of studying rail line
By STEVE TETREAULT
STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration has declined to intervene in a dispute over Energy Department plans for a railroad to carry nuclear waste through rural Nevada to a Yucca Mountain repository.
Nevada Attorney General Brian Sandoval asked the White House Council on Environmental Quality in April to assign the Surface Transportation Board, which regulates railroads, the job of producing environmental studies for a Yucca rail line.
Sandoval argued the Surface Transportation Board has more expertise on rail projects and would conduct a fairer study than the Energy Department, which sees the rail line as a critical segment of the repository project.
DOE officials have defended their efforts as they continue to examine a 319-mile corridor for a rail path from Caliente to the repository site in Nye County, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The White House council settles disputes among federal agencies on environmental matters, but its chairman, James Connaughton, said in a Feb. 8 letter to Sandoval that no agency has dissented with DOE taking the lead on the railroad.
The letter was made public this week.
Marta Adams, a deputy attorney general, said Thursday the state was disappointed.
"It was an angle we were exploring, and we continue to explore it," Adams said. The state's attorneys might raise the issue again as part of a lawsuit challenging DOE's rail preparations, Adams said.
Testifying before a congressional subcommittee in March, Surface Transportation Board Chairman Roger Nober said the agency would get involved in a repository railroad if DOE allows it to be used as a "common carrier" to serve other shippers.
