Utah may bar nuclear waste, Reid says

Utah doesn't have to be the country's next choice for a nuclear dumping ground, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said Friday after an appearance at the University of Utah.

"Just because the Nuclear Regulatory Commission does something doesn't mean we can't stop it, with legislation," Reid told reporters after spending nearly an hour fielding questions from a standing-room-only audience at the U.'s Hinckley Institute of Politics.

But don't expect the powerful Nevada Democrat to introduce a bill halting the Skull Valley temporary storage facility in Tooele County sought by the Goshute tribe. Reid said that's up to Utah's senators.

Reid will, however, propose legislation soon that calls for nuclear waste to be stored where it is generated rather than transported to a single site. That would make both Yucca Mountain and Skull Valley obsolete.

"I just think people aren't going to allow nuclear waste to be hauled," Reid said. "Look at the Goshute operation. You're not going to wake up one morning and find (the nuclear waste) suddenly there. It's got to get there some way. . . , past people's homes, schoolyards, businesses and churches."

Sens. Orrin Hatch and Bob Bennett, both R-Utah, have previously opposed Reid's efforts to keep Nevada's Yucca Mountain from being named the nation's permanent nuclear waste repository. They have called it the best way to block the Skull Valley project, now pending before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The commission's Atomic Safety and Licensing Board is set to hear an appeal on Wednesday from Utah officials attempting who argue the project is too risky.

Because new concerns continue to be raised about the Yucca Mountain site, there is increased fear among opponents of the Skull Valley project that not only will it be approved, it will be turned into a permanent resting place for the nation's nuclear waste.

The latest challenge to Yucca Mountain surfaced Friday with a report citing e-mails sent by several government scientists working on the project that indicated records were being fabricated and results manipulated.

Reid said the e-mails are "worse than the Enron stuff."

The senator cautioned his audience at the Hinckley Institute that "interim means forever" when talking about nuclear waste storage. He told them, as well, that "even the two Utah senators seem a little bit interested now" in his concerns about shipping nuclear waste.

Later, Reid told reporters that he considers Hatch and Bennett friends, "but nuclear waste is something we don't talk about. It's pretty obvious. They should have helped us and didn't. So I'm not going to go hat in hand and beg them for a vote."