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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Craig Bill Directs Construction Of N-Waste Facility In Nevada

Associated Press

Sen. Larry Craig has introduced legislation calling for construction of a Nevada facility for storage and disposal of all the nuclear waste generated in the United States.

The measure, which will run into strong opposition from Nevada’s government leaders, calls for the federal government to begin accepting waste from defense and commercial nuclear facilities in 1998.

“This is a bill that will assure the terms of the negotiations that are going on between the governor, the Navy and the Department of Energy are carried out,” Craig said.

Gov. Phil Batt has been negotiating with top officials of Energy and the Navy on shipments of nuclear waste to the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory.

Batt has insisted that any agreement they reach contains a provision for eventual removal of nuclear waste from Idaho.

“This is good news for Idaho, because it gets the nuclear fuel out of the state even sooner, starting in 1998,” Craig said in a news release. “This bill will finally provide for the timely storage and disposal of spent nuclear fuel and high-level nuclear waste from the nation’s defense program and commercial nuclear power plants.”

He listed as co-sponsors Sen. Dirk Kempthorne of Idaho, Ernest Hollings of South Carolina, Jon Kyl of Arizona, Spencer Abraham of Michigan and Lauch Faircloth of North Carolina.

Craig said the federal government must accept its responsibility to take nuclear waste to a facility where it can be managed safely and economically.

“The bill authorizes construction of a federally funded facility on the Nevada Test Site near Yucca Mountain to store spent Navy fuel from INEL and other defense facilities, and spent fuel currently stored at commercial nuclear power plants from Maine to California,” he said.

Craig’s news release said the measure authorizes construction of an interim storage facility, with the first phase to accommodate up to 20,000 metric tons.