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Extension of Public Comment Period on the Draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement for In-Situ Leach Uranium Milling Facilities AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission. ACTION: Extension of public comment period. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- SUMMARY: This notice revises a notice published on September 19, 2008, in the Federal Register (73 FR 54435), which announced, in part, that the public comment period for the NRC's draft Generic Environmental Impact Statement for In-Situ Leach Uranium Milling Facilities (Draft GEIS) closes on October 7, 2008. The purpose of this notice is to extend the public comment period on the draft GEIS to November 7, 2008.

Issuance of Environmental Assessment and Final Finding of No Significant Impact for Modification of Exemption From Certain NRC Licensing Requirements for Special Nuclear Material for Waste Control Specialists, LLC, Andrews County, TX AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission. ACTION: Environmental Assessment and Final Finding of No Significant Impact. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- SUMMARY: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has prepared an Environmental Assessment for the issuance of an Order under Section 274(f) of the Atomic Energy Act that would modify an Order issued to Waste Control Specialists, LLC (WCS) on November 5, 2004. In accordance with 10 CFR 51.33, the NRC prepared a draft Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) for public review and comment that was issued on July 9, 2009 (74 FR 34983). The public comment period closed on August 10, 2009. NRC received comments from one resident of Texas. The current action is in response to a request by WCS dated December 10, 2007. The November 5, 2004 Order was published in the Federal Register on November 12, 2004 (69 FR 65468). The November 5, 2004 Order, which modified an initial Order issued to WCS on November 21, 2001, exempted WCS from certain NRC regulations and permitted WCS, under specified conditions, to possess waste containing special nuclear material (SNM), in greater quantities than specified in 10 CFR Part 150, at WCS's facility located in Andrews County, Texas, without obtaining an NRC license pursuant to 10 CFR part 70.

Issuance of Environmental Assessment and Final Finding of No Significant Impact for Modification of Exemption From Certain NRC Licensing Requirements for Special Nuclear Material for Waste Control Specialists, LLC, Andrews County, TX AGENCY: Nuclear Regulatory Commission. ACTION: Environmental Assessment and Final Finding of No Significant Impact. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- SUMMARY: The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has prepared an Environmental Assessment for the issuance of an Order under Section 274(f) of the Atomic Energy Act that would modify an Order issued to Waste Control Specialists, LLC (WCS) on November 5, 2004. In accordance with 10 CFR 51.33, the NRC prepared a draft Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) for public review and comment that was issued on July 9, 2009 (74 FR 34983). The public comment period closed on August 10, 2009. NRC received comments from one resident of Texas. The current action is in response to a request by WCS dated December 10, 2007. The November 5, 2004 Order was published in the Federal Register on November 12, 2004 (69 FR 65468). The November 5, 2004 Order, which modified an initial Order issued to WCS on November 21, 2001, exempted WCS from certain NRC regulations and permitted WCS, under specified conditions, to possess waste containing special nuclear material (SNM), in greater quantities than specified in 10 CFR Part 150, at WCS's facility located in Andrews County, Texas, without obtaining an NRC license pursuant to 10 CFR part 70.

Your utility bills have carried a surcharge of $27 billion for nuclear power. The Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982 required nuclear power providers to contribute to the Nuclear Waste Fund, which funds were to build a Nuclear Waste Repository by 1998. This repository is yet to open, leaving our government open to lawsuits. Our government has spend $94 million defending itself against breach of contract resulting in a $420 million judgment for the plaintiffs. Outstanding liabilities are in the billions. Should the repository at Yucca Mountain become operational it could hold existing and future wastes from the nukes already built. Yucca Mountain could not hold the wastes from an expanded nuclear power industry. Wait! That's not all folks!

Mark Thompson's article "Obama's Showdown Over Nukes," published in Time Magazine earlier this week, did a great job of highlighting the controversy over Secretary Gates' statements in favor of developing a new series of nuclear weapons and President Obama's clear statements against such a development. However, in stating that "there is concern that aging pits may fail to detonate properly, or perhaps at all," the article fails to acknowledge the most current research findings on plutonium pits. The scientific authority on nuclear weapons, the JASON panel, as well as studies from DOE's own nuclear labs, have concluded that the plutonium pits in the current U.S. stockpile are viable for up to 100 years.

Senator Voinovich brags that he introduced 2002 legislation that continued the Price Anderson indemnity for the nuclear power industry, thus allowing further nuclear power development. The Nuclear team of the Ohio Sierra Club is organizing a rally to challenge Senator George Voinovich's support for the expansion of nuclear power in Ohio. At a time when Ohioans are already reeling from multiple economic blows and environmental devastation, a ramping up of nuclear power will only leave the state with more contamination, more sickness and more debt. Like others in the pro-nuclear lobby, Voinovich has tried pasting a happy face on nuclear power by claiming that nukes are "clean, green, safe and cheap" and that they offer a solution to the global climate crisis. But the truth lies in the opposite direction.

Greenpeace's 44-metre anti-nukes blimp was put into the air over Olkiluoto in June. The balloon has been taken all over the world to Areva nuclear reactor sites.

A devastating blow to the revival of atomic power has been delivered by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The NRC says the "standardized" designs - on which the entire premise of returning nuclear power to center stage is based - have massive holes in them and may not be ready for approval for years to come. The NRC's warning says: All cost estimates for new nuclear reactors and all licensing and construction schedules have no reliable basis in fact. Thus, any comparisons between future atomic reactors and renewable technologies have no practical significance. And any "hard number" basis for independent financing for future nukes may not be available for years to come, if ever.

Emery County and Green River officials need to look long and hard before they leap into the nuclear age. Transition Power Development has identified a proposed industrial park outside Green River, a city that bills itself as "Utah's Desert Treasure" and panders to tourists, as its preferred site for a nuclear power plant. And local officials, along with many residents, are reportedly excited about the prospect of the high-paying jobs and economic benefits a nuke plant would bring.

Here's a quick geopolitical quiz: What country is three times the size of Texas and has more than 300 days of blazing sun a year? What country has the world's largest oil reserves resting below miles upon miles of sand? And what country is being given nuclear power, not solar, by President George W. Bush, even when the mere assumption of nuclear possession in its region has been known to provoke pre-emptive air strikes, even wars?

Ontario's decision to build new nuclear reactors to maintain the province's generating capacity as it turns away from coal-fired plants carries long-term risks and will have consumers digging deeper into their pocket books to cover inevitable cost overruns, a Niagara opposition MPP warns. "It has inherent dangers, it has long-term risk in terms of disposing of spent fuel and also it's very, very expensive electricity," says Welland NDP MPP Peter Kormos. "The cost overruns are huge, inevitably, and that means the consumer will be paying and paying and paying more and more and more."

If you listen to the rhetoric, nuclear power is back. Smashing atoms will replace burning carbon-based coal, gas and oil. In the face of a disaster movie-like future of runaway climate change -- bringing drought, floods, famine and social breakdown -- carbon-free nukes are cast as the deus ex machina to save us at the last minute.

Two lethal words went thankfully unspoken in President Obama's address to the nation this week - atomic energy. Unfortunately, two others - "clean coal" - were included. An increasingly desperate reactor industry just tried to sneak a $50 billion loan guarantee package into the stimulus bill. But for the third time since 2007, it got beat by a powerful national grassroots movement and key Congressional leaders. Nuke pushers now want reactors painted "green" in a renewable standard Congress may soon set.

EVERYTHING seems easy to some proponents to make the Bataan nuclear plant generate energy for the first time in the unseen future: 1) only $1 billion R48,500,000,000) is needed and 2) just one of our 7,000 islands for waste disposal will suffice. The tall boast One Filipino geologist claims to be knowledgeable: "Give me one island out of our 7,000 and I can find ways to safely store nuclear waste in the Philippines." He referred to levels of barrier protection system and cited Carlsbad, New Mexico as a model for disposal of nuclear waste. He said we have this attitude of "not in my backyard."

Job-starved southern Ohioans are being promised a shiny new nuclear plant. But the announcement has come with a cruel reminder, and the scent of a desperate hoax. Using the gargantuan corpse of the shuttered Portsmouth-Piketon uranium enrichment plant as his backdrop, U.S. Senator George Voinovich (R-OH) punctuated his enthusiastic endorsement the new nuke by proclaiming that, with his support, the US government has paid thousands of Ohio workers hundreds of millions of dollars in compensation for the health damage they suffered from being irradiated while working there. What was he thinking?

"Your recent report "No nukes for now," by Lavilla Capener and Mike Ivey, states without qualification that Wisconsin's two nuclear facilities "have operated quietly and safely since the 1970s." It is easy to prove this statement false. Every U.S. government agency that regulates radiation exposure agrees that there is no safe level of exposure. The Environmental Protection Agency says, "There is no level below which we can say an exposure poses no risk. ... Radiation is a carcinogen. It may also cause other adverse health effects, including genetic defects in the children of exposed parents or mental retardation in the children of mothers exposed during pregnancy.""

"As radiation poured from 3 Mile Island 31 years ago this weekend, utility executives rested easy. They knew that no matter how many people their errant nuke killed, and no matter how much property it destroyed, they would not be held liable. Today this same class of executives demands untold taxpayer billions to build still more TMIs. No matter how many meltdowns they cause, and how much havoc they visit down on the public, they still believe they're above the law. Fueled with more than $600 million public relations slush money, they demand a risk-free "renaissance" financed by you and yours. "

"Just over 1,240 days ago, in December 2006, Progress Energy Florida chief Jeff Lyash first visited the St. Petersburg Times to unveil plans for a nuclear power plant in Levy County and to utter these words: "It's important to have a new nuclear plant in Florida." Lyash, since promoted, said those words when the plant's original price tag stood at about $6 billion, and when the Levy plant was to begin operating in 2016. Since then, the price tag on the Levy facility has steadily ballooned. Last week in regulatory filings, Progress Energy said the nuke plant may cost as much as $22.5 billion and be delayed until 2021."

After Fukushima, what? Japan's disastrous earthquake and tsunami that crippled its coastal nuclear reactors have reopened old questions for California: How big could the next inevitable earthquake be, and how safe are the state's nuclear power plants that now produce more than 15 percent of our electricity? Federal and state experts are reviewing every aspect of what went wrong at Fukushima's reactors, where fuel rods overheated, cooling efforts proved inadequate, radiation escaped and evacuation signals were, at best, mixed.

Thanks to everyone who contacted the U.S. Dept. of Energy (DOE) and their Members of Congress two weeks ago, urging an extension of DOE's public comment period on its proposed weakening of taxpayer protections in its nuclear loan guarantee program. Under pressure from concerned citizens and U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill (D-MO), DOE extended the comment deadline from Sept. 8th to Sept. 22nd. Now we must take advantage of this extension to get our comments in! DOE's most clearly outrageous proposal is to give up its "first lien" in the event of a new reactor loan repayment default. This would mean that taxpayers would be placed behind other lenders, such as foreign export-import banks, in terms of receiving compensation. Thus, taxpayers likely would not be compensated at all, but rather left holding the bag for billions when a new reactor or uranium enrichment facility goes belly up. The Congressional Budget Office has predicted, based on the nuclear industry's history, that well over half of all new reactors could default on their loans. Taxpayers' liability for dozens of new reactor loan guarantees could reach into the hundreds of billions of dollars. DOE's rule change would increase, not decrease, taxpayer risk.

The U.S. Department of Energy is collecting comments over the next few weeks on its new timeline for cleanup at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. At meetings in Washington and Oregon federal officials will outline the new proposed schedule. It sets a timeline for cleaning up underground tanks of radioactive sludge and building a massive factory called the "vitrification" or "vit plant" to treat that waste. Carrie Meyer is a spokeswoman for DOE. She says the original cleanup and construction schedule drafted in 1989 wasn't realistic.

The U.S. Department of Energy is collecting comments over the next few weeks on its new timeline for cleanup at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation. At meetings in Washington and Oregon federal officials will outline the new proposed schedule. It sets a timeline for cleaning up underground tanks of radioactive sludge and building a massive factory called the "vitrification" or "vit plant" to treat that waste. Carrie Meyer is a spokeswoman for DOE. She says the original cleanup and construction schedule drafted in 1989 wasn't realistic.