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| | | published Wednesday, October 15, 2008 | 982 Views :: 0 Comments | |  |
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
For more information contact:
____________________ opposes the reprocessing of nuclear waste under the Bush administration’s Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP), as recommended by the recent Department of Energy (DOE) report, entitled Draft Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement [PEIS] for Global Nuclear Energy Partnership.
Reprocessing, incorrectly referred to in the report as “recycling,” is the extraction of weapons-usable plutonium from nuclear waste. GNEP has already faced stiff public opposition due to its disastrous environmental impacts, employment of technology that encourages nuclear proliferation, and bailout-sized $700 billion estimated price tag.
Since 2006, the Bush administration has promoted GNEP as a way to solve the nuclear waste problem in the United States and support the expansion of nuclear power. However, recent studies by the National Academy of Sciences, Government Accountability Office, the International Panel on Fissile Materials, and a nuclear industry-sponsored report by the Keystone Center have refuted these claims and expressed further concerns regarding dangerous pollution, nuclear proliferation, and exorbitant cost. In 2007, as part of a legally-required public comment period, approximately 2,500 people attended regional hearings resulting in 550 oral comments, and more than 14,000 – the second highest number in the history of DOE public comments – submitted written comments primarily in opposition to GNEP.
On October 17th, DOE released the Draft PEIS for a new round of public comments, as required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Though the report’s legal mandate is to analyze environmental and socio-economic impacts of reprocessing, it has already faced serious criticism due to its failure to provide any cost analysis, fully address environmental and security concerns, its failure to select a specific site for a reprocessing complex, and its unsubstantiated claim that reprocessing reduces the total volume of waste.
Hearings will be held in a limited number of locations, including Hobbs, Carlsbad, Roswell, and Los Alamos, NM; Pasco, WA; Hood River, OR; Idaho Falls, ID; Paducah, KY; Piketon, OH; Oak Ridge, TN; Graniteville, SC; Bolingbrook, IL; and Washington, DC.
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