Sign your organization onto a coalition letter opposing H.R. 3053!

H.R. 3053, the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2017, sponsored by U.S. Representative John Shimkus (Republican-Illinois), was poised for U.S. House floor action as early as next week.

However, as Politico has reported:

NUCLEAR WASTE BILL ON ICE - FOR NOW: Shimkus said plans to bring a committee-passed nuclear waste package, H.R. 3053 (115), to the House floor are on hold for now as Nevada lawmakers, some of the most vocal opponents of the measure, deal with Sunday's massacre. "In light of the tragedy, there's no desire to move quickly," he said.

We must use this opportunity provided by additional time, to build resistance to this dangerously bad bill.

Please sign your group onto the coalition letter pasted in below! And please spread the word to other groups you know!

Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has kindly spearheaded this group sign on effort, just as it did at the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee stage in late June 2017. (The scores of groups that signed onto that version of the letter will automatically stay on this time around, unless they explicitly communicate with us to be taken off.)

To sign on, there’s a google form here (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSflR0_uHQfQ9Ds4JRklF1VmtdbtxRVcDJzLIoOcn5633Vk2mA/viewform?usp=sf_link) that NRDC would prefer folks use, or else email Sean Alcorn at NRDC <salcorn@nrdc.org> your name, title, organization name, city and state.

Text of letter to U.S. House of Representatives:

Dear Representative:

On behalf of our millions of members, the undersigned organizations urge you to oppose H. R. 3053, the “Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2017” (115^th Congress, 1^st Session). This bill will put our nation’s nuclear waste storage policy on the wrong track yet again. It ignores environmental concerns, states’ rights and consent to host the waste in the first instance, and attempts to truncate public review in order to force a “solution” – either Yucca Mountain or a new consolidated interim storage site – that have both proven to be unworkable. Rather than blindly charge forward at the cost of public safety and public resources, we urge Congress to reject this bill and start the important and necessary work on a comprehensive set of hearings to commence building a publicly accepted, consent based repository program.

The bill you will vote on retains the flaws contained in its earlier forms. Some of these harms include unwise efforts to recommence the licensing process for proposed repository at Nevada’s Yucca Mountain. This is a project certain to fail the NRC’s licensing process due to the geology and hydrology of the site that make it unsuitable for isolating spent nuclear fuel for the required time. Next, the draft legislation suggests going forward with a consolidated storage proposal before working out the details of a comprehensive legislative path to solve the nuclear waste problem, entirely severing the link between storage and disposal, and thus creating, an overwhelming risk that an interim storage site will determine or function as de facto final resting place for nuclear waste. The draft provides no safety, environmental or public acceptance criteria, only speed of siting and expense. This is precisely the formula that produced the failure of the Yucca Mountain process and made it, as the previous administration noted, “unworkable.”

Other provisions conflict with the well-established and necessary requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act, 42 U.S.C. §4321, et seq. Doing so exacerbates the public interest community’s (and that of Nevada) objection of the last two decades – that the process of developing, licensing, and setting environmental and oversight standards for the proposed repository has been, and continues to be, rigged or weakened to ensure that the site can be licensed, rather than provide for safety over the length of time that the waste remains dangerous to public health and the environment. 

This bill was largely changed for the worse in committee. The bill now sets us on path to go forward in the next few years with a consolidated storage proposal before working out the details of a comprehensive legislative path to solve the nuclear waste problem and, frankly, creates an overwhelming risk that an interim storage site in New Mexico, Utah, or even Texas (although the Texas site just requested that its license application be held in abeyance) will be the de facto final resting place for nuclear waste.

This will not work. It is likely those states will, in some form or another, resist being selected as the dumping ground for the nation’s nuclear waste without a meaningful consent based process and regulatory authority that garners both public acceptance and a scientifically defensible solution. Further, and also just as damning, it sets up yet another attempt to ship the waste to Yucca Mountain irrespective of its certain likelihood of failing the regulatory process, or seek to revive the licensed Private Fuel Storage site that has been strongly opposed in Utah or even open up New Mexico’s Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) facility for spent nuclear fuel disposal despite strong opposition and contrary to 25 years of federal law. The latter site also was designed and intended for nuclear waste with trace levels of plutonium, not spent fuel (and we note, a site that has already seen an accident dispersing plutonium throughout the underground and into the environment, contaminating 22 workers, and thus the site was functionally inoperable for years). All of this runs precisely counter to the core admonition of the previous administration’s Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future (“BRC”) that “consent” come first.

The waste will not be going anywhere for years and it should be incumbent on Congress to fix problems in a meaningful fashion, not attempt an expedient solution that is destined to fail, again.

Our concerns, many of which were detailed above or in earlier letters, remain. We would be pleased to work with any representative on a feasible, constructive path forward, but this legislation would put the nation’s nuclear waste storage policy on the wrong track yet again and we urge you to reject it. Thank you for your consideration of our views.  

Sincerely, [99 groups currently signed on]

Alliance for Environmental Strategies

Alliance to Halt Fermi 3

Basin and Range Watch

Bellefonte Efficiency & Sustainability Team; Mothers Against TN River Radiation

Beyond Nuclear

California Communities Against Toxics

Cape Downwinders

Chesapeake Physicians for Social Responsibility

Citizen Power

Citizens Awareness Network

Citizens’ Environmental Coalition

Citizens’ Resistance at Fermi 2 (CRAFT)

Coalition for a Nuclear Free Great Lakes

Code Pink (separate?)

Code Pink Women for Peace

Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety

Concerned Citizens for SNEC Safety
Crabshell Alliance

CT Coalition Against Millstone

Don’t Waste Michigan

Ecological Options Network (EON)

Energía Mía

Energy Justice Network

Environmental Working Group

Food & Water Watch

Friends of the Earth

Georgia Women's Action for New Directions (Georgia WAND)

Grandmothers Mothers and More for Energy Safety

Great Lakes Environmental Alliance

Green State Solutions, Iowa

Hip Hop Caucus

Hudson River Sloop Clearwater

Indigenous Rights Center

League of Conservation Voters

Los Alamos Study Group

Michigan Safe Energy Future, Kalamazoo MI Chapter

Michigan Safe Energy Future, Shoreline Chapter

Missouri Coalition for the Environment

Multicultural Alliance for a Safe Environment

Natural Resources Defense Council

Nevada Nuclear Waste Task Force

No Nukes NW

North American Water Office

Northwest Environmental Advocates

Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Nuclear Energy Information Service

Nuclear Free World Committee; Dallas Peace and Justice Center

Nuclear Information and Resource Service

Nuclear Issues Study Group

Nuclear Watch New Mexico

Nuclear Watch South

Nukefree.org

Nukewatch

On Behalf of Planet Earth

OurRevolution Ocala

Partnership for Earth Spirituality

Peace Action of Michigan

Physicians for Social Responsibility

Physicians for Social Responsibility – Chesapeake

Physicians for Social Responsibility – Kansas City

Physicians for Social Responsibility – Los Angeles

Physicians for Social Responsibility – Oregon

Physicians for Social Responsibility – San Francisco Bay Area Chapter

Pilgrim Legislative Advisory Coalition PLAC

Pilgrim Watch

Portsmouth/Piketon Residents for Environmental Safety and Security (PRESS)

Public Citizen

Public Health and Sustainable Energy (PHASE)

Public Watchdogs

Radiation and Public Health Project

Radiation Truth

Riverkeeper

Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center

Safe Utility Meters Alliance NW (SUMA-NW)

San Clemente Green

San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace

San Onofre Safety

Sierra Club

Snake River Alliance

Southern Alliance for Clean Energy

Southwest Research and Information Center

Stand Up/Save Lives Campaign

Straits Area Concerned Citizens for Peace, Justice and the Environment (SACCPJE)

Sustainable Energy & Economic Development (SEED) Coalition

Task Force on Nuclear Power, Oregon and Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility

Tennessee Environmental Council

Tewa Women United

Texas River Revival

The Lands Council

The Nuclear Resister

The Peace Farm

Thomas Merton Center

Toledo Coalition for Safe Energy

Tri-Valley CAREs (Communities Against a Radioactive Environment)

Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Harford County

Vermont Citizens Action Network

Vermont Yankee Decommissioning Alliance

Veterans For Peace Golden Rule Project

Western States Legal Foundation

Scores of groups oppose H.R. 3053!

See the environmental coalition's June 27, 2017 letter to the U.S. House of Representatives, here.

Congressional action alert reminder: Help stop nuke waste dumps! Contact your U.S. Rep.!

Help push back against nuclear power lobbyists! If you've already taken these actions, thank you -- please spread the word to others. If not, please contact your U.S. Representative, and urge opposition to H.R. 3053, the Nuclear Waste Policy Amendments Act of 2017. Rumor has it the bill could go to the U.S. House floor for a vote in the next week or two. If H.R. 3053 becomes law, it would expedite the opening of environmentally unjust, scientifically unsuitable, non-consent-based radioactive waste dumps in Nevada (permanent disposal at Yucca Mountain), New Mexico, and/or Texas (so-called centralized interim storage facilities, at Holtec/Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance, and Waste Control Specialists, LLC, respectively). These dumps would require unprecedented numbers of high-risk "Mobile Chernobyl" road, rail, and/or waterway shipments of irradiated nuclear fuel through most states to get the nuke waste there. To find the contact info. for your U.S. Representative, enter your zip code, hit GO, and follow the links, or get patched through to their office by phoning the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 225-3121, and follow the voice prompt instructions.

Beyond Nuclear letter to the editor in the L.A. Times

The following letter to the editor was published in the Los Angeles Times, written in response to a Sept. 11, 2017 L.A. Times editorial:

To the editor: For 15 years, hundreds of environmental groups have advocated for hardened on-site storage of irradiated nuclear fuel, as close and safely as possible, to the point of generation as a necessary interim measure.

Why ship highly radioactive waste a thousand miles to the east when it could be moved just a few miles? San Onofre’s wastes can be transferred out of the tsunami zone, away from the earthquake faults, across the 5 Freeway, further inland and to higher ground. By moving the dangerous nuclear fuel rods into the heart of Camp Pendleton, there would be the added bonus of many thousands of U.S. Marines to help guard it.

The push to turn the New Mexico-Texas borderlands into a nuclear wasteland is an environmental injustice. The large Hispanic population already suffers significant pollution from oil drilling, natural gas fracking, uranium enrichment and “low-level” radioactive waste disposal.

Kevin Kamps, Takoma Park, Md. 

The writer monitors radioactive waste for the group Beyond Nuclear.

Physicians’ Organization Objects to San Onofre Deal: Edison Settlement Increases Health and Security Risks

PSR LA (Physicians for Social Responsibility Los Angeles) has issued an excellent press release, blasting the settlement agreement reached between the NIMBY group Citizens' Oversight, and nuclear utility Southern California Edison (SCE). The settlement agreement seeks to export San Onofre's 1,800 metric tons of highly radioactive irradiated nuclear fuel, from the seaside nuclear power plant site, to either somewhere along the rail route to Yucca Mountain, Nevada; and/or to Waste Control Specialists in Texas; and/or to Eddy-Lea Energy Alliance in New Mexico; and/or to Palo Verde nuclear power plant in Arizona (part-owned by SCE).

(See Citizens' Oversight's press release announcing its settlement agreement with SCE; see a summary of the settlement agreement.)

Re: that first idea, to move San Onofre's wastes to somewhere along the rail route to Yucca Mountain, a May 31, 2017 article by Chris Clarke, published by KCET and Link TV, exposed Citizens' Oversight's egregiously flawed 2015 proposal to ship San Onofre's wastes to Fishel, CA, in an article entitled "Environmental Activists Suggest Dumping Radioactive Waste in National Monument."

The actual environmental consensus nation-wide is Hardened On-Site Storage (HOSS), as close to the point of generation as possible. In keeping with that, moving the wastes a few miles further inland, to higher ground, into HOSS, deeper into the heart of Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base, is the least-worst option, as PSR points out in its press release. Not only would this get the wastes out of the tsunami zone, and further away from coastal earthquake fault lines, but it would have the added bonus of security provided by a very large number of U.S. Marines.

Update on August 31, 2017 by admin

Here is some of the media coverage about the Citizens' Oversight/SCE settlement agreement (thanks to the State of Nevada Agency for Nuclear Project's "What's News" website for the compilation):

• Business Wire - Settlement Announced in Suit Challenging Nuclear Fuel Storage at San Onofre - Southern California Edison
• Fox 5 San Diego - Agreement will move nuclear waste out of San Onofre - Abbey Gibb and City News Service
• Orange County Register - New deal could push nuke fuel out of San Onofre - Teri Sforza
• KCBX San Luis Obispo, CA - Carbajal hosts Diablo Canyon decommissioning town hall - Greta Mart
• NBC Sandiego - San Onofre Nuclear Waste to Be Moved to an Off-Site Storage Facility
• San Clemente Times - Breaking: Citizen's Oversight Projects, Coastal Commission Reach Settlement Agreement in SONGS Lawsuit - Eric Heinz
• San Diego Reader - Agreement to move nuclear waste from San Onofre--But potential for "mobile Chernobyl" may forestall Edison from acting - Don Bauder
• Arizona Republic - APS says it won't take California utility's nuclear waste - Ryan Randazzo

• KUSI San Diego - Public Watchdogs call agreement reached for storage of nuclear waste a 'sham' - Steve Bosh
• Los Angeles Times - Court settlement looks to move nuclear waste from San Onofre - Rob Nikolewski

As the KUSI San Diego article above reports, the group named Public Watchdogs in s. CA has pointed out that the settlement agreement nevertheless allows SCE to begin the storage of irradiated nuclear fuel in dry casks on the Pacific shore, as it planned to do in the first place. That storage could go on for decades. From the article, Public Watchdogs also seems to be taking the position, get it out of here, we don't care where it goes. Public Watchdogs' problem with the settlement agreement seems to be, it doesn't accomplish that quickly enough (as in, right away).

Update on September 1, 2017 by admin

• NBC Sandiego - Critics Claim Deal to Move Nuke Waste Has Flaws - JW August
• East County Magazine, San Diego CA - Arizona Refuses Spent Fuel from San Onofre; Doctor's Group Criticizes Nuclear Waste Settlement Plan - Miriam Raftery