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Monday, November 29, 2010
Associated issues: Commitment to Independent and Verifiable Science, Commitment to Cost-Benefit Analysis, National Security and Energy Independence, Get the Facts on Energy & Gas Prices
After more than 20 years, millions of pages of studies, and a reported cost of more than $10 billion, the fate of the nation's first nuclear waste repository is about to be decided.
Or is it?
For months, the normally sleepy Nuclear Regulatory Commission has kept the energy industry and state utility regulators in suspense as it weighs the Obama administration's request to kill the proposed repository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada -- a project that's been in the works since the Reagan administration.
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Monday, November 22, 2010
Associated issues: Commitment to Independent and Verifiable Science, Global Warming, Cap-and-Tax Opposition Resource Center; Impacts of Costly Climate Bill Exposed, Climategate, Commitment to Oklahoma, Commitment to Cost-Benefit Analysis, National Security and Energy Independence, Get the Facts on Energy & Gas Prices
Roll Call: Inhofe Is Happy to Stand Apart - "He's not seen as a rebel around here by any means ... but he's an independent thinker," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said of the Oklahoma Republican. Inhofe, 76, is comfortable being a contrarian. In an interview last week, he recalled a time when one of his grandchildren "came up to me and said, ‘Pop-I, Why do you always do things that nobody else does?' ... and I said, ‘because nobody else does.'" ..."This earmark debate is a great example" of Inhofe's indifference to public opinion or peer pressure, Graham added. ... Inhofe's colleagues said he is motivated by principles, not politics: "He's very passionate and he can be as partisan as the best of them. But deep down, he wants to help people," a second Republican Senator said ...While most Members look to avoid intraparty confrontation, Inhofe appears to welcome it, taking pride in often being the most hated man in the room.
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Monday, November 22, 2010
Associated issues: Commitment to Independent and Verifiable Science, Improving the Service of the Federal Bureaucracy, Commitment to Cost-Benefit Analysis, National Security and Energy Independence, Get the Facts on Energy & Gas Prices
President Obama famously declared in 2009 that under his Administration the "days of science taking a backseat to ideology are over." Except, apparently, when the Administration wanted to justify its Gulf of Mexico drilling ban this summer.
The White House dropped its deep water drilling ban last month, ending months of government-imposed pain on a Gulf region hit by the BP oil spill. But only last week did the Department of Interior's acting inspector general, Mary Kendall, issue her findings on the moratorium's controversial beginnings. Lackluster though her investigation was, the report confirms that the moratorium never had any basis in science or safety. It was pure politics.
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Monday, November 22, 2010
Associated issues: Commitment to Independent and Verifiable Science, Improving the Service of the Federal Bureaucracy, Global Warming, Cap-and-Tax Opposition Resource Center; Impacts of Costly Climate Bill Exposed, Climategate, Commitment to Oklahoma, National Infrastructure and Public Works Accomplishments, Commitment to Cost-Benefit Analysis, National Security and Energy Independence, Get the Facts on Energy & Gas Prices
In an era of change, Sen. James Inhofe is unapologetic about standing his ground.
"He's not seen as a rebel around here by any means ... but he's an independent thinker," Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said of the Oklahoma Republican.
Inhofe, 76, is comfortable being a contrarian. In an interview last week, he recalled a time when one of his grandchildren "came up to me and said, ‘Pop-I, Why do you always do things that nobody else does?' ... and I said, ‘because nobody else does.'"
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Friday, November 19, 2010
Associated issues: Commitment to Independent and Verifiable Science, Improving the Service of the Federal Bureaucracy, Commitment to Cost-Benefit Analysis, National Security and Energy Independence
IT'S confirmed. Four Nuclear Regulatory Commission members cast their votes months ago on the question of whether the Obama administration can unilaterally cancel the nation's deep geological nuclear-waste repository. But the votes have been kept secret apparently for political reasons.
Attribute the holdup to NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko, who seems to have done everything he can to game the process and keep the question about Yucca Mountain from a more credible proceeding in federal court.
Congress designated the site 100 miles from Las Vegas as the destination for the nation's commercial nuclear waste and high-level defense waste, such as that now at Hanford in Southeastern Washington.
The NRC's own licensing board in June ruled that, no indeed, the Obama administration cannot flout the will of Congress. The question before the NRC is whether to affirm or overturn that ruling - a decision needed before the Washington, D.C., Circuit Court of Appeals will take up related litigation.
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Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Associated issues: Commitment to Independent and Verifiable Science, Commitment to Cost-Benefit Analysis, National Security and Energy Independence
The chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Tuesday defended his handling of Yucca Mountain, saying he did not delay his vote on the contentious nuclear waste site this fall to avoid affecting the hotly contested Senate race in Nevada.
Gregory Jaczko confirmed he withdrew his vote on the Nevada repository until late October but said it was not done to avoid complicating re-election for Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., a former boss whose campaign was based in part on his efforts to kill the plan.
"The commission process is a deliberative process that involves the work of all commissioners," Jaczko said. "No one commissioner had any preferential vote in the matter. We all have equal votes. If or when the commission has an order ready, it will move forward with an order."
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Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Associated issues: Commitment to Independent and Verifiable Science, Commitment to Cost-Benefit Analysis, National Security and Energy Independence
In a disclosure that could fuel allegations that his handling of the issue has been politically motivated, Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko has acknowledged that he substantially delayed a commission ruling on whether the Energy Department had authority to withdraw a license application before the NRC on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.
While a federal appeals court stayed litigation with the expectation that the NRC would expedite its decision on the controversy, newly released documents show that Jackzo initially voted on the Yucca matter in August, but then withdrew his vote and waited more than two months to resubmit it in late October-ensuring the matter would not be decided before the November 3 elections.
All the other NRC commissioners had voted on the matter by mid-September, according to documents delivered to Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) last week.
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Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Associated issues: Commitment to Independent and Verifiable Science, Commitment to Cost-Benefit Analysis, National Security and Energy Independence
In a disclosure that could fuel allegations that his handling of the issue has been politically motivated, Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko has acknowledged that he substantially delayed a commission ruling on whether the Energy Department had authority to withdraw a license application before the NRC on the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository.
While a federal appeals court stayed litigation with the expectation that the NRC would expedite its decision on the controversy, newly released documents show that Jackzo initially voted on the Yucca matter in August, but then withdrew his vote and waited more than two months to resubmit it in late October-ensuring the matter would not be decided before the November 3 elections.
All the other NRC commissioners had voted on the matter by mid-September, according to documents delivered to Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) last week.
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Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Associated issues: Commitment to Independent and Verifiable Science, Commitment to Cost-Benefit Analysis, National Security and Energy Independence
Gregory Jaczko hasn't gotten much attention from Congress during his 16 months as chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. That appears likely to change if Republicans win one or both chambers next week.
Republicans say Mr. Jaczko, a former aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.), is improperly blocking work on the proposed nuclear-waste repository at Nevada's Yucca Mountain, a project long been favored by the nuclear industry, since nuclear waste continues piling up at the commercial nuclear reactors and DOE sites where it was generated. But it is deeply unpopular with many Nevadans, including Mr. Reid, who often takes credit for thwarting the multibillion-dollar project.
In keeping with a campaign pledge, President Barack Obama asked Congress earlier this year to zero out funding for Yucca. But like the character in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," the project isn't quite dead yet; in June, a panel of judges at the NRC ruled that the administration could not simply withdraw the license application submitted during the Bush administration.
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Monday, November 8, 2010
Associated issues: Commitment to Independent and Verifiable Science, Commitment to Cost-Benefit Analysis, National Security and Energy Independence
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission chairman's vote is in on whether the Energy Department can withdraw its license application to build a repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev., but there is still no timeline for an NRC decision on the matter.
NRC Chairman Gregory Jaczko today said he first voted in August on whether DOE has authority to withdraw the repository application, then withdrew that vote and "continued active consultation with my colleagues before re-voting on October 29, 2010." Under NRC procedures, the results of a vote are not made public until a staff guidance is developed based on the votes and the commission passes a final order.
Jaczko reported his vote in a letter to Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) in response to an inquiry from the lawmaker.
Inhofe, the ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, asked last week if and when NRC had voted on a lower board's ruling in June that only Congress has the authority to withdraw DOE's Yucca license application (Greenwire, Nov. 8).
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