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Nuclear Waste Dump Timeline Is Updated

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From Associated Press

The Energy Department intends to submit a license application by the end of the year to open a national nuclear waste dump in Nevada, more than a year later than planned, according to President Bush’s nominee to head the department.

Samuel Bodman’s comments on a timetable to use the Yucca Mountain repository came in response to questions from members of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee during confirmation proceedings in Washington.

The committee has recommended full Senate approval of Bodman’s nomination to succeed Spencer Abraham as Energy secretary. The Senate is expected to confirm Bodman, perhaps next week. He currently serves as deputy secretary of the Treasury Department.

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The Energy Department missed a self-imposed December date to submit a Yucca license application to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The department has yet to complete a requirement that millions of pages of supporting documents be accessible at an NRC online database, the Licensing Support Network.

The Energy Department wants to open the Yucca Mountain repository by 2010.

Sen. Pete V. Domenici (R-N.M.), chairman of the energy committee, said the department also needed time to respond to a federal court ruling in July that threw out a crucial Environmental Protection Agency radiation health safety standard.

For the Yucca project to go forward, the EPA must set a new standard or Congress could consider a law creating a less strict radiation standard than one recommended by the National Academy of Sciences.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, would work to block such a law, Domenici said.

Energy Department officials have said they plan to announce a new Yucca Mountain project timeline next month.

“It is the department’s responsibility to make sure that the repository will comply with whatever standard emerges from the EPA’s ongoing process,” Bodman said in response to questions from the committee. “My first priority will be the protection of the health and safety of the citizens of Nevada and the rest of the country.”

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Bodman, who also has served as deputy secretary of the Commerce Department, spent 31 years in the private sector. He worked at Fidelity Investments and Cabot Corp., an international chemical company. He is a chemical engineer and a former professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

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