Berkley proposes alternative to nuke waste dump

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., is offering an amendment to a House bill that would encourage cutting-edge research for changing highly radioactive waste into something less deadly, instead of burying it inside Yucca Mountain.

By keeping the radioactive wastes at nuclear power reactor sites while technical solutions are sought, the material would not be shipped across the country through 43 states, the bill notes.

The congresswoman proposed on Tuesday funding $6 million over two years to study transmutation and other processes that could turn deadly radioactive waste into less harmless elements at 111 nuclear reactors scattered across the nation. Transmutation is a process that can change the basic building blocks of matter.

Berkley's bill answers critics of a technological solution such as transmutation of nuclear waste, who fear terrorists or rogue nations could use uranium and plutonium to build more nuclear bombs. Her proposal does not allow isolating either uranium or plutonium from the wastes.

In the Senate, Sen. Pete Domenici, R-New Mexico, has offered a similar alternative to burying 70,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain by asking for research funds to convert the wastes inside a nuclear accelerator developed by a scientific team at Los Alamos National Laboratory in Albuquerque.

Berkley also joined her congressional colleagues in asking President Clinton to veto an existing nuclear waste storage bill that could be scheduled for a Senate vote by Friday.

The Senate and the House have two competing bills on nuclear waste. The House has been waiting for the Senate to take action on legislation offered by Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, which sets weaker radiation standards for a repository 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas at Yucca Mountain. It would also bring radioactive waste to Nevada by 2007 instead of 2010.

Murkowski's bill allows the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, instead of the Environmental Protection Agency, to set radiation limits on Yucca Mountain. The commission's version allows more radiation exposure and does not protect ground water.

The Clinton administration has not taken a position on whether the president will veto the Senate's new version of the bill if it passes, a spokeswoman said.

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