THE WHITE HOUSE

WASHINGTON

July 15, 1996

The Honorable Thomas A. Daschle

United States Senate

Washington, DC 20510

Dear Senator Daschle:

I would like to express the Administration's position on S. 1936, a bill to create a centralized interim high-level nuclear waste storage facility in Nevada. The Administration cannot support this bill, and the President would veto it if the bill were presented to him in its present form.

The Administration believes it is important to continue work on a permanent geologic repository. According to the National Academy of Science, there is a world-wide scientific consensus that permanent geologic disposal is the best option for disposing of commercial and other high-level nuclear waste. This is why the Administration has emphasized cutting costs and improving the management and performance of the permanent site characterization efforts underway at Yucca Mountain, Nevada. The Department of Energy has been making significant progress in recent years and is on schedule to determine the viability of the site in 1998.

Designating the Nevada Test Site as the interim waste site, as S. 1936 effectively does, will undermine the ongoing Yucca Mountain evaluation work by siphoning away resources. Perhaps more importantly, the enactment of this bill will destroy the credibility of the Nation's nuclear waste disposal program by prejudicing the Yucca Mountain permanent repository decision. Choosing a site for an interim storage facility should be based upon objective science-based criteria and should not be made before the viability of the Yucca site is determined in the next two years. This viability assessment, undertaken by the Department of Energy, will be completed by 1998.

Some have alleged that we need to move spent commercial fuel rods to a central interim site now. According to a recent report from the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board (NWTRB), an independent board established by Congress, there is no technical or safety reason to move spent fuel to an interim central storage facility for the next several years. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has determined that current technology and methods of storing spent fuel at reactors are safe. If they were not safe, the NRC would not license these storage facilities. Also, the NWTRB assures us that adequate at-reactor storage space is, and will remain, available for many years.

In S. 1936, the Nevada Test Site is the default site, even if it proves to be unsuitable for the permanent repository. This is bad policy. This bill has many other problems, including those that present serious environmental concerns. The bill weakens existing environmental standards by preempting all Federal, state and local laws and applying only the environmental requirements of this bill and the Atomic Energy Act. The results of this preemption include: replacing the Environmental Protection Agency's authority to set acceptable radiation release standards with a statutory standard considerably in excess of the exposure permitted by current regulations; creating loopholes in the National Environmental Policy Act; and eliminating current licensing requirements for a permanent repository.

I hope that you will not support S. 1936. It is an unfair, unneeded, and unworkable bill. We have the time to develop legislation and plan for an interim storage facility in a fairer and scientifically valid way while being sensitive to the concerns of all affected parties. This includes those in Nevada, those along the rail and roadways over which the nuclear waste will travel, and those who depend on and live near the current operating commercial nuclear power plants.

Thank you for your consideration of these views.

Sincerely,

Leon Panetta

Chief of Staff

Identical letters sent to Honorable Trent Lott, Honorable Frank H. Murkowski, Honorable J. Bennett Johnston Jr. and Honorable Larry E. Craig