[Sustain] [SFGP-A] fwd: URGENT: (endorse request) Tomorrow Deadline Comments On State Pro-Nukes Bill

[Susan King]

yes!

sk
On Apr 10, 2007, at 8:19 PM, vicki leidner wrote:

> yes
>
> Eric Brooks wrote:
>
>> Hey all,
>>
>> See forward below.
>>
>> Can we do a quick consensus on allowing Erika to fax the sample  
>> letter
>> below to the Natural Resources Committee on behalf of the SFGP?
>>
>> [Aaron Israel wrote]
>>
>> Tomorrow letters are due to oppose a bill to lift the ban on new
>> nuclear plants in California.
>>
>> If you are an organization, or if you would like to send your own
>> letter, the Natural Resources Committee fax is:
>>
>> 916-319-2192
>>
>> The Committee prefers faxes, but if this is not possible letters can
>> be emailed to aurora.wallin at asm.ca.gov  
>> <mailto:aurora.wallin at asm.ca.gov>
>>
>> Letters must be received by 4:00 pm, Wed. April 11th to be  
>> included in
>> Committee packets for hearing next Monday, April 16th.
>>
>> Questions? Contact Rochelle Becker of the Alliance for Nuclear
>> Responsibility and Sierra Club's national chair for radiation and
>> toxics, at "rochelle489 at charter.net <mailto:rochelle489 at charter.net>"
>>
>> sample letter:
>>
>> Dear Chairwoman Hancock
>>
>>
>>
>> I(WE) am writing in opposition to AB 719, Assemblyman Devore's  
>> bill to
>> lift California's ban on the siting of new nuclear plants in
>> California.  In 1976 our state had the foresight to question the
>> federal government's ability to create a permanent and safe solution
>> for long term storage of high-level radioactive waste.   To undermine
>> this protective legislation could have serious health and economic
>> impacts to California residents—on whose fragile and seismically
>> active coasts radioactive waste continues to accumulate.
>>
>>
>>
>> AB 719 states that:
>>
>>
>>
>>          (f)  Current California law prohibits the permitting of any
>> new commercial nuclear powerplants until an approved means of  
>> disposal
>> of high-level nuclear waste becomes available. With federal efforts
>> well underway to provide an approved means of high-level nuclear  
>> waste
>> disposal, and given that timelines for nuclear powerplant design,
>> permitting, construction, on line operation, and first refueling  
>> would
>> likely be in excess of 10 years, by the time a powerplant would be
>> ready for operation, an approved high-level nuclear waste disposal
>> means will be available.
>>
>>
>>
>> The current ban, PRC 25524.2, which AB 719 seeks to overturn, states
>> that there can be no new nuclear power plants sited in California  
>> until:
>>
>>
>>
>>                (a) The commission (California Energy Commission)  
>> finds that there has been developed and that the United States  
>> through its authorized agency has approved and there exists a  
>> demonstrated technology or means for the disposal of high-level  
>> nuclear waste.
>>
>>
>>
>> As of this date, _none_ of those conditions have been met.  The
>> Federal government has been trying—for a quarter of a century—since
>> the passage of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, to wrestle with
>> the unwieldy problem of radioactive waste.   When the author of AB  
>> 719
>> writes, " With federal efforts well underway to provide an approved
>> means of high-level nuclear waste disposal…" one wonders where the
>> facts are to back up this assumption.   The only solution on the
>> table, the Yucca Mountain national repository, has been mired in
>> scientific, administrative and political problems for decades.   The
>> Department of Energy has yet to even set a date on which it will
>> submit its application for approval by the Nuclear Regulatory
>> Commission, and the NRC may be a long way from granting that
>> application, as evidenced by these statements from the Las Vegas
>> Review-Journal of January 23 ^rd , 2007:
>>
>>
>>
>> Ed McGaffigan, a veteran member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission,
>> said Monday that the Yucca Mountain program is deeply flawed and that
>> the Nevada nuclear waste site should be scrapped.
>>
>> "It may be time to stop digging, and it may be time to rethink,"
>> McGaffigan said in a critique of the Energy Department program as he
>> prepares to retire from the five-member commission that regulates
>> nuclear safety….
>>
>> "I think Yucca Mountain has been beset by bad law, bad regulatory
>> policy, bad science policy, bad personnel policy, bad budget policy
>> throughout its history," McGaffigan said. "Every time somebody has
>> done something to try to speed things up, it has backfired….
>>
>> "Each year that passes, we are not going to get any closer to Yucca
>> under the current circumstances," McGaffigan said.
>>
>>
>>
>> It is therefore, at this time, wholly inappropriate to consider
>> lifting the moratorium on new nuclear power plants in California, as
>> conditioned by PRC 25524.2.
>>
>>
>>
>> I (WE) urge that this bill, AB 719, be opposed and rejected.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Sincerely,
>>
>>
>>
>> --------------------------------------------------------------------- 
>> ---
>>
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