Oversight of Department of Energy Activities at the Yucca Mountain Site

S. HRG. 108–384 OVERSIGHT OF DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY ACTIVITIES AT THE YUCCA MOUNTAIN SITE HEARING BEFORE A SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS UNITED STATES SENATE ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION SPECIAL HEARING MAY 28, 2003—LAS VEGAS, NV Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations ( Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/senate U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 87–639 PDF WASHINGTON : 2004 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800 Fax: (202) 512–2250 Mail: Stop SSOP, Washington, DC 20402–0001 COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS TED STEVENS, Alaska, Chairman THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi ROBERT C. BYRD, West Virginia ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico ERNEST F. HOLLINGS, South Carolina CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, Missouri PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont MITCH MCCONNELL, Kentucky TOM HARKIN, Iowa CONRAD BURNS, Montana BARBARA A. MIKULSKI, Maryland RICHARD C. SHELBY, Alabama HARRY REID, Nevada JUDD GREGG, New Hampshire HERB KOHL, Wisconsin ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah PATTY MURRAY, Washington BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL, Colorado BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota LARRY CRAIG, Idaho DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California KAY BAILEY HUTCHISON, Texas RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois MIKE DEWINE, Ohio TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas MARY L. LANDRIEU, Louisiana JAMES W. MORHARD, Staff Director LISA SUTHERLAND, Deputy Staff Director TERENCE E. SAUVAIN, Minority Staff Director SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico, Chairman THAD COCHRAN, Mississippi HARRY REID, Nevada MITCH MCCONNELL, Kentucky ROBERT C. BYRD, West Virginia ROBERT F. BENNETT, Utah ERNEST F. HOLLINGS, South Carolina CONRAD BURNS, Montana PATTY MURRAY, Washington LARRY CRAIG, Idaho BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota CHRISTOPHER S. BOND, Missouri DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California TED STEVENS, Alaska (ex officio) Professional Staff CLAY SELL TAMMY PERRIN DREW WILLISON (Minority) NANCY OLKEWICZ (Minority) Administrative Support ERIN MCHALE (II) CONTENTS Page Opening Statement of Senator Harry Reid ........................................................... 1 Statement of Senator John Ensign ........................................................................ 3 Statement of Robin M. Nazzaro, Director, Natural Resources and Environ- ment, General Accounting Office ........................................................................ 7 Prepared Statement ......................................................................................... 8 History of Actions Taken to Correct Quality Assurance Problems ...................... 9 Status of DOE Efforts to Improve Quality Assurance .......................................... 10 Preliminary Observations ....................................................................................... 11 Statement of Allison MacFarlane, Senior Research Associate, Massachusetts Institute of Technology ........................................................................................ 12 Prepared Statement ......................................................................................... 15 Brief Summary of Main Points ............................................................................... 15 Politics and Science at Yucca Mountain ................................................................ 16 Unresolved Technical Issues at Yucca Mountain .................................................. 17 Reason for Unresolved Issues ................................................................................. 19 Lessons Learned ...................................................................................................... 20 Statement of William L. Belke, Nuclear Regulatory Commission (Retired) ....... 22 Prepared Statement ......................................................................................... 24 Additional Material Submitted Subsequent to Close of Hearing ........................ 39 Letter From Senator Pete V. Domenici ................................................................. 39 Response From Margaret S.Y. Chu ........................................................................ 39 (III) OVERSIGHT OF DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY ACTIVITIES AT THE YUCCA MOUNTAIN SITE WEDNESDAY, MAY 28, 2003 U.S. SENATE, SUBCOMMITTEE ON ENERGY AND WATER DEVELOPMENT, COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS, Las Vegas, NV. The subcommittee met at 1:12 p.m., in the Commission Cham- bers, Clark County Government Building, 500 Grand Central Park- way, Las Vegas, Nevada, Hon. Harry Reid presiding. Present: Senator Reid. Also present: Senator Ensign. OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR HARRY REID Senator REID. The United States Senate Appropriations Com- mittee and the Subcommittee on Energy and Water is called to order. The committee is meeting under the direction of Senator Pete Domenici, of New Mexico, and the ranking member, which is me. Senator Domenici has indicated that, with pleasure, he invited Senator Ensign, as I have, to participate in this most important hearing. I would like to acknowledge the presence of the Attorney General of the State of Nevada, Brian Sandoval. General, would you stand, please? General Sandoval runs the largest law firm in Nevada, about 150 lawyers. We are very glad that he has personally taken the time to attend this. There has been a seamless transition from Attorney General Del Papa to Sandoval, working with the Governor and doing all the legal work that is necessary in this most important project, the project being the legal efforts to do what is necessary to make sure all Nevada’s interests are represented in the courts of this country in this Yucca Mountain Project. I am also happy to recognize the County Commissioner, Myrna Williams. Over the years, we have appreciated very much the support of the Clark County Commission. We have had good support from Washoe County and Clark County, the two counties that make up about 90 percent of the population of the State of Nevada, and we are grateful for that support that we have gotten. I, first of all, want to thank the witnesses for appearing today in Las Vegas. Two of the witnesses had to travel a long distance to be here, and the third had to leave the golf course to come here. I have been working on problems dealing with Yucca Mountain for more than two decades. Throughout all these years, I have seen (1) 2 indications of problems with the program, and it seems that each time, no matter who is in the presidency, Democrat or Republican, the Department of Energy refuses to acknowledge the problems and presses forward like a runaway train. Somewhere in the bow- els of the Department of Energy, there are people who never leave, and they continue their undying efforts to push this project that is flying. For two decades, we have heard warnings throughout the Nation about the dangers of transporting nuclear waste across the country. Today’s hearing is not going to deal simply with that. And it ap- pears that each time a person raises their voice, the Department of Energy says the concerns are unfounded. When I state that the Department of Energy’s own analysis shows hundreds of thousands of truck shipments that would be needed to move the waste to Yucca Mountain, DOE simply says, ‘‘We will use rail.’’ Well, we all know that we will never be able to build a rail spur in Nevada and in other parts of the country. It is too expensive, and it is certainly too risky. When the General Accounting Office, responding to our request, warned that the Department of Energy, that their site rec- ommendation was unfounded and premature, they pressed ahead anyway. They simply ignored the General Accounting Office’s well- documented investigation. Like an ostrich sticking its head in the sand, the Department of Energy just assumes ignoring these problems will make them go away. But it has not, and it will not. From the scientific standpoint, we have seen clear evidence that the project will never meet the Department of Energy’s own requirements for groundwater movement through the repository, among other things. Here, the DOE’s response was simple, ‘‘Get rid of these requirements.’’ All of these events make it clear that the DOE is intent on push- ing the project forward regardless of the risk it poses to the health and safety of Nevadans and the rest of the country. But all these actions by the DOE were just a drop in the bucket when compared to what I have seen in the last few months. Some of you have read the news reports about retaliation against workers in the quality assurance program who have raised concerns about the credibility of the scientific and technical work being done there. As a result, Senator Ensign and I requested an investigation by the General Accounting Office into these problems. Sev- eral months later, more reports surfaced about quality assurance auditors finding additional problems with the quality of the De- partment of Energy’s management of the program and, most disturbing, the apparent efforts to silence those witnesses. This rep- resents a disturbing pattern at the project. Instead of addressing problems, the DOE seems more intent on investigating auditors for simply doing their jobs. So today we hope to hear from a number of witness who have been involved in these incidents. Unfortunately—and I repeat, unfortunately—many of these witnesses were unwilling to come forward. We have two here who wanted to come and

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