House Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality to Review Yucca Progress, Consider Industry-Fed Legislation

The House Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality has scheduled a hearing for next Thursday, September 11, 2003. This hearing is entitled "A Review of the Progress of DOE's Yucca Mountain Project." Postponed since July, it is ostensibly a regular progress check. But in addition to reviewing progress being made on the Yucca Mountain waste repository, there is a chance that a proposed industry-favored bill may be discussed that advocates taking Yucca appropriations "off-budget," meaning that money would allocated separately from the federal budget, precluding the option of reappropriating the money for other priorities.

This tactic has been attempted and defeated before, but with nuclear activists' attention focused mainly on the energy bill, there's hope among pro-industry representatives that the opposition will be caught off-guard or simply short-handed. If your representative is on the Energy and Air Quality Committee (for a list of the committee members, go to this URL:

http://energycommerce.house.gov/108/subcommittees/Energy_and_Air_Quality.htm

Please CALL OR WRITE him or her to register your opposition to moving Yucca appropriations off-budget, as well as your general opposition to the misguided project.

Call the Capitol switchboard at 202-224-3121 to be transferred to your Representative's office.

The event will be open to the public and webcast live. For the latest information, visit http://energycommerce.house.gov/108/Hearings/09112003hearing1069/hearing.htm

Please see www.citizen.org/cmep for more information on the misguided Yucca Mountain project.

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Brendan Hoffman
Organizer, Nuclear Energy & Waste
Critical Mass Energy and Environment Program
Public Citizen
p: 202.454.5130
f: 202.547.7392
bhoffman@citizen.org
www.citizen.org/cmep