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Gold/Mining/Energy : Nuclear Power -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: arno who wrote (6)	6/3/2004 11:10:08 PM
From: arno	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 180

Yucca cuts could force huge layoff AS MANY AS 1700, MOST IN NEVADA, COULD LOSE JOBS IF ABRAHAM PREDICTION PROVES PROPHETIC By STEVE TETREAULT PVT Washington Bureau WASHINGTON - Almost 1,700 workers would face layoffs in Nevada and in other states starting this summer if Congress forces a deep budget cut in the Yucca Mountain Project, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham has told lawmakers. Abraham said job losses would amount to 70 percent of the workforce for the planned nuclear waste repository. The layoffs - most of them in Nevada - would shut down most activities on the repository program at a time when the Energy Department is rushing to complete a key license application by Christmas, Abraham said. A repository opening scheduled for 2010 would be delayed "for an indefinite period of time." Abraham issued a dark outlook in a letter sent Monday to Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, a subcommittee chairman who is friendly to DOE but says he might need to write an 85 percent budget cut - down to $131 million - for the Yucca program in the fiscal year that begins in October. The letter is expected to be cited by Hobson and other repository supporters who are trying to avert a big setback for the project as Congress debates spending bills in the coming weeks. Repository critics dismissed Abraham's remarks when the letter became public May 26. They said the energy secretary was dusting off scare tactics to motivate Congress to approve an $880 million Yucca budget he wants for next year. "I think this is absolutely jockeying over the numbers," said Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev. Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said in a statement Abraham was "holding Nevada jobs hostage" to get more money. "It's the same old rhetoric they use every time to threaten Congress," said Bob Loux, executive director of Nevada's Agency for Nuclear Projects. Abraham said the Yucca program carries a $400 million annual payroll that provides work to 231 federal employees and 2,264 employed by contractors. He said layoffs would reach beyond Nevada, where 105 federal workers and 1,650 contract employees are based. Idaho is home to 161 workers studying cask designs, while another 159 work in California. Dozens of others work in New Mexico, Colorado and Washington state. Tennessee is home to five while two are employed in Arizona and two in Texas, according to DOE figures. Besides job losses in the short term, Abraham said delays in a 2010 repository opening would cost the government and private utilities a combined $1 billion annually. The DOE letter is not a scare tactic, said Sara Perkins, a spokeswoman for Hobson. The leader of the House energy and water subcommittee asked Abraham in a letter earlier this month to calculate a $131 million Yucca Mountain budget next year. "There is a significant difference between the (DOE) funding request and the $131 million that has been spelled out," Perkins said. "At first blush it looks like DOE has provided a candid and objective response to the chairman's letter." Hobson said he might have no more than $131 million available for Yucca Mountain in a bill his subcommittee will write later this month. He said the shortfall would be due to complications in the way the Bush administration wrote its budget request. Despite talk of deep cuts, Ensign predicted that Congress will face pressure from the nuclear industry and in the end appropriate the same amount it did last year for the Yucca project, about $580 million. While not as much as DOE requested, that would not be as big of a falloff. "The chances of us getting a lower number are virtually nil," Ensign said. "If we hold the line from last year that's pretty good. There are people who really want to build that (repository)." pahrumpvalleytimes.com