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If S. 104 were presented to the President in its current form, the President
would veto the bill. S. 104 would undermine the credibility of the Nation's
nuclear waste disposal program by, in effect, designating a specified site for
an interim storage facility before the viability of that site as a permanent
geological repository has been assessed. The bill would also undermine the
ongoing work on the permanent disposal site by siphoning away resources for an
interim site.
The Administration is committed to resolving the complex and important issue of
nuclear waste storage in a timely and sensible manner. The Federal
government's long-standing commitment to permanent, geological disposal should
remain the basic goal of high-level radioactive waste management policy. This
Administration has instituted planning and management initiatives to accelerate
progress on assessing Yucca Mountain, Nevada, as a permanent geologic disposal
site, and urges the Congress to provide sufficient resources to allow the
Administration to complete the Yucca Mountain viability assessment in 1998.
S. 104, however, would effectively establish Nevada as the site of an interim
nuclear waste storage facility before the viability assessment of Yucca
Mountain as a permanent geologic repository is completed. Moreover, even if
Yucca Mountain is determined not to be viable for a permanent repository, the
bill would provide no plausible opportunity to designate a viable alternative
as an interim storage site. Any potential siting decision concerning such a
facility ultimately should be based on objective, science-based criteria and
informed by the likelihood of the success of the Yucca Mountain site.
In addition, the Administration strongly objects to the bill's weakening of
existing environmental standards by preempting all Federal, State, and local
laws inconsistent with the environmental requirements of this bill and the
Atomic Energy Act. This preemption would effectively replace EPA's authority
to set acceptable radiation release standards with a statutory standard and
would create loopholes in the National Environmental Policy Act.
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