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American Morning

Nevada Governor, Energy Secretary Sound off on Nuclear Waste Disposal

Aired April 09, 2002 - 08:23   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Now to the question of what to do with 77,000 tons of nuclear waste. President Bush has signed off on the Department of Energy's plan, which is to transport the stuff to a site under Nevada's Yucca Mountain, about 100 miles outside Las Vegas, 800 feet below the desert floor. But Nevada's Gov. Kenny Guinn has a message for the president, which is not in my state you don't.

Gov. Guinn signed a veto of the president's endorsement and yesterday delivered it to the Congress. Now it's up to the Congress to either go along with the president or go along with the governor's veto. Guinn and his supporters are arguing that the government's plan will put much of the country outside the state of Nevada at risk. In a national newspaper ad, Guinn's people say that nuclear waste should be shipped through or would be shipped through 43 states in order to get it to the nuclear waste storage site in Nevada.

In a few minutes, we'll talk to the Secretary of Energy about this. But joining us first from Washington is the governor of the great state of Nevada, my home state, Kenny Guinn.

Gov. Guinn, nice to have you with us. Welcome.

GOV. KENNY GUINN (R), NEVADA: Good morning, Jack.

CAFFERTY: Unusual for a governor to veto a presidential directive, but you've gone ahead and done it, and now apparently you must convince at least some members in the Senate, where the vote might be close, that people outside Nevada should be concerned about this. If I like in New Jersey or some other state, why should I worry about whether they store this stuff in Nevada?

GUINN: Well, Jack, certainly the storage is a concern for all of us in the great state of Nevada. But also, when you are transferring on some 24,000 to 30,000 shipments and some 77,000 tons of high nuclear waste, for the next 24 years you're going to see 3,000 or 4,000 transportation units moving throughout America and that's going to expose some 123 million other Americans outside of the great state of Nevada.

So it's a concern for us and we want all of America to know we think it's predicated on unsafe science. It's bad public policy. For instance, the United States government has never completed an environmental impact statement on the ills of transporting the 77,000 tons of high nuclear waste throughout America.

CAFFERTY: The...

GUINN: For us just to build a single family home subdivision, we must comply with the law, and I don't know why the government doesn't have to comply with its own laws.

CAFFERTY: Well, that proponents of this would argue that they have been studying this for 20 years. Let me read you something that was in the "New York Times." These quotes are attributed to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Dennis Hastert. It was in the "Times" on February 16.

"After two decades of study, we know this remote location between, beneath the Nevada desert, is a safe, secure and viable site. Americans deserve the peace of mind that spent nuclear fuel will be consolidated into one secure location rather than scattered across the country in over 130 various sites."

The logic of that seems obvious. Put it all in one secure, safe place 800 feet beneath the desert floor as opposed to having it sitting on the surface all around the country. And the other point you make about transporting it, haven't we been transporting nuclear waste without any serious problems in this country for a good long while now?

GUINN: Well, there's been some 30 train wrecks and exceptional wrecks throughout America that most people don't know about, but certainly the Department of Energy knows about it. And it's a concern to us. Since we've been into this business now for almost 20 years, we're viably concerned.

Certainly there's pros and cons on each side, but what many people would tell you, Jack, is that if you have a nuclear reactor and a power energy plant in your community and you move some spent rods, you still have hundreds or thousands of spent rods in your neighborhood that have to cool down in water for five years before you can move them and the nuclear reactor is still there. And that's what happened in Chernobyl.

And it's easier to protect it in a home base with concrete around it, etc., more protection than it is to take it out in some 30,000 trucks and barges and trains that are going to be traveling throughout this country. It's just much easier for a terrorist to attack a moving target than it is if it's stationary.

CAFFERTY: But if this stuff were all eventually confined to a single location, it would become, arguably, much more difficult for that to be a terrorist target, would it not?

GUINN: Well, that's true. But the problem is and what you don't hear and the American people haven't heard is that for the next 30 years there's no chance of that. It's going to remain in every particular area and in the state of Illinois, where they have some 13 units, they're going to be scattered in those 13 units because they have to stay there and be cool. And you don't ship a spent rod. A nuclear spent rod uses only about five percent during its lifetime. So 95 percent lifetime is left in it. And they don't ship them one rod at a time.

They gather up, get large truck loads and then they'll be moving them.

CAFFERTY: All right...

GUINN: And we just think that there needs to be more study.

CAFFERTY: All right, Gov. Guinn, the time available this morning between you and the Secretary of Energy.

GUINN: Thanks, Jack.

CAFFERTY: I thank you very much for being with us this morning, Gov. Kenny Guinn of the state of Nevada, and we will keep in touch with your office about developments as this issue goes forward.

We're going to switch our discussion now to the Secretary of Energy, Spencer Abraham, who joins us this morning from the White House.

Mr. Secretary, good morning.

SPENCER ABRAHAM, ENERGY SECRETARY: Good to be with you. Thanks.

CAFFERTY: You just heard Gov. Guinn state what he thinks are some viable national security issues, particularly in light of the events of September the 11th, that if we are going to make 100,000, plus or minus a few trips, over the next 20 years of active nuclear waste, that the terrorist possibilities are mind numbing. Is this a security issue?

ABRAHAM: No, actually it works the other way. Right now the waste is at targets that are identifiable and well known. We ship in secrecy under heavy security. People won't know when that's happening. The number will be far less than the governor just mentioned.

But most importantly, right now the waste is sitting very close to large population centers and waterways all over the country in temporary facilities. That's not the right way, from a security point of view or an environmental point of view, for us to maintain it.

CAFFERTY: The...

ABRAHAM: Burying it 800 feet below a mountain in the desert near Death Valley will work. It's scientifically sound and it's been studied for 20 years for $4 billion. We know it can work and that's the best way to proceed.

CAFFERTY: What about the General Accounting Office, which says there are literally dozens of unanswered scientific and engineering questions concerning the plan to move and store this stuff beneath Yucca Mountain? Gov. Guinn's saying that, for example, no environmental impact statement has been completed on the site.

ABRAHAM: No, no, no. We've done an environmental impact statement, a final statement. The tests that the GAO is talking about will be conducted as part of the licensing process. Remember, what Nevada wants us to do is to end the process entirely right now. What we're proposing, because we believe the science is good, is to have the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the independent experts who make the final decision, have a chance to make that decision, to evaluate our case, to evaluate Nevada's case and decide who's right. And it's during that licensing process that these remaining tests will be conducted. That's when it has to be conducted.

CAFFERTY: All right, let's move on quickly while we have a couple of moments to the subject of gasoline prices. I saw signs in northern New Jersey where I live three or four months ago for unleaded regular for $0.99 a gallon. Those things are now collectors' items, those signs, and gasoline prices have shot up by 40 percent in the last several weeks. Yesterday Iraq comes along, says it's going to stop shipments of oil for a period of 30 days as a protest over U.S. policy in the Middle East. Some question about whether that boycott could spread, other OPEC countries could go along.

What do you tell the motoring public in this country as the summer driving season approaches about the escalating price of gasoline and the uncertain outlook for the continued supply of oil to make gasoline out of the Middle East?

ABRAHAM: Well, Jack, you're right, the price is going up. We're concerned about it. The president's asked our department to monitor this very closely. We've put in place a consumer hot line. If people see evidence of price gouging at their station, we want them to let us know so that we can crack down on it. Some of this is the normal seasonal pattern, when you get into the driving season, as you said. Some of it's because the economy is recovering, and that's a positive sign, of course. But we're watching the world situation. That's clearly been a factor.

Iraq's decision has not been followed by other oil producing countries. In fact, they've been very reassuring in saying that they're not going to let this become a situation where oil is used as a weapon.

But our administration is watching it and taking it seriously. We will take corrective action to the extent that we can, and we're not going to be caught asleep at the switch here. We're ready to act if we need to.

I think at this point we're hopeful that the other oil producing countries are not going to follow Iraq. We do have other problems, though. In Venezuela, strikes in their oil industry are causing problems, as well. So it's something which we're going to be closely following.

CAFFERTY: All right, sir, we're going to have to leave it there. I appreciate your time this morning.

ABRAHAM: Thank you.

CAFFERTY: Thank you for being with us.

State of Energy Spencer Abraham, joining us this morning from the White House.

ABRAHAM: Good to be with you.

CAFFERTY: Thank you.

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