Saturday, January 29, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
Yucca irritates Sandoval
White House tries
AG's patience
By STEVE TETREAULT
STEPHENS WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON -- Attorney General Brian Sandoval said in a letter released Friday that he was losing patience with White House officials who have failed to respond to a Yucca Mountain complaint he raised last year.
Sandoval said he has yet to hear from the Council on Environmental Quality after he asked the White House agency last April to intervene in Energy Department transportation planning for the planned Nevada nuclear waste repository.
The state argues that another federal agency, the Surface Transportation Board, should have primary responsibility over plans to build a 319-mile rail line through Nevada to the repository site. The project would be the largest U.S. rail project since World War II, state consultants have said.
"Insofar as nine months have elapsed since my request, it appears that CEQ may have overlooked or ignored its own regulatory deadline," Sandoval said in the letter sent Wednesday to council chairman James Connaughton. The council umpires disputes among agencies on environmental law.
Sandoval said White House rules required Nevada get a timely answer. The Energy Department and the Surface Transportation Board should have had 20 days to address the issue, he said, while the Council on Environmental Quality had another 20 days to gather the responses and decide Nevada's appeal.
With the letter, Sandoval sent Connaughton photos of flooding that damaged railroad tracks in Lincoln County earlier this month. The photos show "the imprudence of constructing a rail line there," the state official said.
White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said, "There is some agency discussion taking place." She did not know when the issue may be settled.
Sandoval said he would give the White House council another 20 days to get back to him before seeking "alternative means for resolving the controversy," possibly another Yucca Mountain lawsuit.
