Welcome to the CSG Midwestern Radioactive Materials Transportation Committee Update. Below are links and summaries of several important happenings from the last few weeks. Please don't hesitate to contact Lisa (920/458-5910) or Sarah (630/925-1922) with any questions or concerns about any of these issues.

A Committee Member Answers the Call

At the end of this week, Nebraska gubernatorial appointee John Erickson will wrap up his civilian duties for awhile. A long-time officer in the Navy, John recently decided to serve his country in a slightly different capacity -- as a volunteer with the Army National Guard. He'll spend the next several months in training stateside, after which he'll head to Iraq to work on some important civil affairs projects. We're hoping he'll drop us a line now and then to let us know how he's doing. Please join the staff in wishing John the very best of luck for a successful mission.

Let Your Plan Be Your Guide

Turning to a call of a much less noble sort, the staff is seeking volunteers to contribute to the next revision of the Planning Guide for Shipments of Radioactive Materials Through the Midwestern States. The Planning Guide is a comprehensive list of expectations the Midwestern states have for shippers of radioactive materials. Included within its pages are the Midwestern states' preferences for planning, packaging, mode of transport, emergency management, and routing, among other topics. Also included is a list of Midwestern state contacts and regulations in these areas, which the committee updates every six months coinciding with committee meetings. The Planning Guide is intended to be a single source of information for shippers so that radioactive materials transportation is both safe and efficient.

The "best practices" sections of the Planning Guide are reviewed and updated every other year. The last printing was in August 2006, so funding permitting, we will reprint it in the second half of 2008. This spring, a small review team (4-5 people) will review the content and suggest revisions to the entire committee. As always, individual states will be responsible for updating the state-specific sections of the Planning Guide. The review team will likely have 2-3 conference calls in the coming months and will present the suggested revisions to the committee for review at the meeting in Indianapolis. If you are interested in being part of the review team, please let Lisa know by January 31st.

Click here for the online version of the Planning Guide.

Problems Mount on Yucca

"When I am president, Yucca Mountain will be off the table forever." So said Hillary Clinton last week to Nevadans eager to hear her stance on the nuclear waste repository. Similar platforms were promoted by Barack Obama and John Edwards. The fate of the site was a major issue in the recent Nevada primary, with many Nevadans hoping that, with a new administration, Yucca Mountain will be a thing of the past. Despite the fact that pro-Yucca candidates carried Nevada in the past two presidential elections, the Democrats are staunchly against the site. The Republicans, in contrast, are less openly opposed to it (with the exception of Ron Paul) and most support the revival of the nuclear industry. Either way, the site will undoubtedly be under intense scrutiny when the new administration takes over.

Regardless of what happens a year from now, the site has some major roadblocks to maneuver around today. In recent months, the planned national repository has taken a substantial budget cut, resulting in the reprioritization of goals and the laying off of many on-site workers. The site itself now sits with a chain link fence across its tunnel entrance and a couple of security personnel. OCRWM Director Ward Sproat had made it one of his objectives to get the repository construction license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission by June 30, 2008. The OCRWM budget approved by Congress was nearly $100 million less than requested, and according to Sproat, it will seriously impair the Department's ability to submit the application on time.

In other DOE-related news, the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, or GNEP, may also be in jeopardy. Due to budget cuts, the project is stopping site-specific inquiries for the Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement. Originally, DOE had issued 13 grants to potential sites, including Morris, Illinois, and Portsmouth, Ohio, to do evaluations for the construction of an advanced reactor and a recycling facility. Those evaluations were to be finished in 2008 for inclusion in the PEIS. According to DOE, however, the site evaluations have stopped, and the department is focusing the PEIS solely on the theoretical question of whether to recycle spent fuel or not. Presumably if the decision is made to go ahead with recycling, the individual site evaluations will continue and a supplement to the PEIS will be issued.

Click here for a round-up of Republican candidates' comments on Yucca Mountain.

Click here for a round-up of Democratic candidates' comments on Yucca Mountain.

Click here to read more about the budget shortfall and license application timeline.

Click here for more information on GNEP's new direction.

Thanks for reading! Look for our next update in your inbox in two weeks.

Sincerely,
Lisa Janairo and Sarah Wochos
Committee Staff