Obama urged to keep Yucca on track

WASHINGTON -- Executives for the nuclear industry's lobbying arm said Thursday they have told aides to President-elect Barack Obama that the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository should remain in the nation's energy playbook, and there is no need to rush decisions about the project.

Officials with the Nuclear Energy Institute said at a briefing they weighed in with members of Obama's transition team. Speculation about how Obama will handle nuclear waste issues has been running high since the election.

"We have talked with them. We have no sense what they are going to do," said Marvin Fertel, NEI acting president and chief executive officer.

But Fertel and other industry officials said they are insisting that the proposed repository for nuclear spent fuel should remain a part of the nation's long-range nuclear waste strategy.

The institute also is advocating that used fuel be removed from power plant sites and stored elsewhere in the meantime, and that the government continue researching technologies for recycling the material.

"We believe under all circumstances there has to be a geologic repository, but we are willing to engage with policy-makers of all stripes as to what sort of program they want to construct," said Alex Flint, NEI senior vice president for governmental affairs.

The remarks come against a backdrop of Obama's comments during the presidential campaign that he opposes the Yucca program, and pressure being maintained by Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., to ensure the incoming president follows through on a promise to seek alternatives.

Reid, the project's chief opponent in Congress, has said he has discussed Yucca Mountain with Obama since the election and that the program "will bleed hard" in the coming year.

The Washington Post reported Thursday that Obama is going to nominate Steven Chu, a strong advocate of conservation and renewable energy research, to become energy secretary. There has been no official announcement yet.

Chu, who is director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, shared the Nobel Prize for physics in 1997. A New York Times profile of Chu said he has spoken unenthusiastically about the Yucca program that would fall under his jurisdiction.

Flint said Yucca Mountain is the "law of the land" under a 1982 statute that authorized the search for a repository to store thousands of tons of defense nuclear waste and spent fuel from utility reactors.

Moves by the Obama administration to halt the program by withdrawing a repository license application that has already been filed at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission could trigger industry lawsuits as a possible violation of that law, he said.

"The program is meritorious and it is the law of the land and it should proceed until the law is changed, and there is no technical reason why it should not proceed," Flint said. "We will comply with the law as it was written until people want to change the law," Flint said. "We think it is incumbent on the administration also to comply with the law until there is a consensus that changes should be made."

Until then, Flint said, "our view is that under all circumstances the license application should be considered by the NRC."

Fertel said there should be no rush to decide on the repository, as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission review is expected to take four years at least.

"They are not building anything out there," he said of the Yucca site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

"The president can make a decision after whatever review he does," Fertel said. "Our advice is to do the review, and if you are going to change the law, then change the law. But do it in a systematic way, don't do precipitous things."

Contact Stephens Washington Bureau Chief Steve Tetreault at stetreault@stephensmedia.com or 202-783-1760.