Fuel Cycle to Nowhere: U.S. Law and Policy on Nuclear Waste

Obama's Election as President: Political Victory for Nevada

226 Fuel Cycle to Nowhere to regulate risk for such a long period of time. Within that regulatory time frame, we proposed two dose standards that would apply based on the number of years from the time the facility is closed. For the first 10,000 years, the proposal retained the 2001 final rule’s dose limit of 15 millirem per year. This is protection at the level of the most stringent radiation regulations in the U.S. today. From 10,000 to one million years, we proposed a dose limit of 350 millirem per year. The proposed longterm dose standard considered the variation across the country of estimated exposures from natural sources of radiation. Our goal in proposing this level was to ensure that total radiation exposures for people near Yucca Mountain would be no higher than natural levels people live with routinely in other parts of the country today. One million years, which represents 25,000 generations, is consistent with the time period cited by the National Academy of Sciences as providing a reasonable basis for projecting the performance of the disposal system.434 EPA received more than two thousand comments on the proposed rule. Its final 2008 rule extended the compliance period from ten thousand to one million years and reduced the dose limit from 350 to 100 millirems. EPA said that the lower dose limit was based on recommendations of NAS and international bodies such as the International Commission on Radiological Protection, the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation.435 DOE submitted a revised license application to NRC demonstrating its compliance with the new EPA standards on February 19, 2009.436 Nevada in turn filed with NRC a series of more than two hundred legal objections to the revised license application.437 As required by Nuclear Energy Institute, NRC had amended its Yucca licensing regulations at 10 C.F.R. Part 63 to incorporating the new EPA standards as the basis for NRC’s licensing decision on Yucca.438 Nevada promptly filed court challenges to both the revised EPA standards and the revised NRC licensing regulations.439 Nevada attorney general G. Catherine Masto charged that EPA was again “ignoring science in favor of a project which presents unacceptable risks to the public.”440 NWPA provides that NRC must decide on DOE’s license application for Yucca within three years after the date of submission, with the possibility of a one-year extension .441 NWPA provides that NRC does not have to prepare a separate EIS for a repository-­licensing decision.442 Such an EIS, had it been required, would have afforded the public an opportunity to review and comment on a draft EIS. However, NRC’s Atomic Safety and Licensing Board granted California and Nevada the right to participate in licensing hearings on 299 issues raised by the states.443 Obama’s Election as President: Political Victory for Nevada While the regulatory and other legal proceedings on Yucca dragged on, the impending timetable for NRC licensing of Yucca was overtaken by political developments that dramatically changed Nevada’s fortunes—namely, the 2008 presidential election and inauguration of the new Obama administration. As a candidate with his eye on the 2008 Nevada Democratic primary (the third such primary in the nation), Obama made numerous public statements calling the repository unsuitable.444 As early as 2007, he wrote Yucca Mountain: Blueprint for Failure 227 a letter to the Las Vegas Review-Journal stating: “I have always opposed using Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste repository.”445 In a debate leading up to the caucus, Obama said: “Well, I think it’s a testimony to my commitment and opposition to Yucca Mountain that, despite the fact that my state has more nuclear power plants than any other state in the country, I’ve never supported Yucca Mountain, so I just want to make that clear.”446 All the other Democratic presidential contenders also opposed Yucca. Obama’s campaign ultimately made a public promise to kill the Yucca project: [As president,] Obama will also lead federal efforts to look for a safe, long-term disposal solution based on objective, scientific analysis. In the meantime, Obama will develop requirements to ensure that the waste stored at current reactor sites is contained using the most advanced dry-cask storage technology available. Barack Obama believes that Yucca Mountain is not an option. Our government has...