Nevada Delegates Cut Funds For Nuclear Repository By Mary Manning Energy Department officials declared in mid March that they will deliver a license application for a Yucca Mountain nuclear repository by a self-imposed deadline of June 30 despite Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s slashing the project’s budget. Back in January the nuclear waste repository project seemed on life support with a chain-link fence across a tunnel’s entrance leading into Yucca Mountain and worker layoffs announced. “It’s clear the dump is dying,” Reid spokesman Jon Summers said at the time. “This is one of the most significant moves we’ve seen to signal the end of the dump.” Edward F. “Ward” Sproat, the project’s leader, resuscitated the run for licensing the repository at a congressional hearing in early spring. And that’s after a $100 million cut in the project’s budget, putting the license application’s deadline in doubt. While Sproat spoke to congressional members, Reid revealed documents that dig into an Energy Department contract with Morgan Lewis, a law firm the senator believes has a conflict of interest. Thus, Reid believes the firm should be removed from the project. Morgan Lewis was hired in 2007 to help carry Yucca Mountain’s license through the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s process. The commission has said that the licensing of Yucca Mountain, a first-of-a-kind project for the nuclear industry, could take up to four years to complete with no guarantee that the Energy Department will receive permission to build the repository. Normal processing for a nuclear power plant or other nuclear project before the commission typically takes three years in a court-like procedure. The firm also represents utility companies suing the Energy Department over the repository’s delay, which is a decade old. Read the rest by subscribing to NWW! © 2008 joyce communications