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Paducah task force revising grant request: Congressional resolution creates uncertainty among those involved with possible nuclear recycling plant.
(Paducah Sun, The (KY) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Jan. 10--Congress' continuing resolution to keep 2007 federal spending at 2006 levels casts doubt on a Department of Energy program to build a 1,000-job nuclear fuel recycling plant sought by Paducah.
DOE must fund the ambitious Global Nuclear Energy Partnership from its existing budget or look for money elsewhere, said Charlie Martin, a member of the Paducah Uranium Plant Utilization Task Force. The group is revising a request for Energy Department grant money it will receive for a study to try to convince DOE to locate the plant here.
Martin's comments came during a meeting Tuesday, two days after Washington, D.C.-based Energy & Environment Daily quoted a key lawmaker as saying GNEP was in trouble.
"It won't be in the (continuing resolution)," said Rep. David Hobson, R-Ohio, who last year was chairman of the House Energy and Water Development Appropriations Subcommittee. With the Democrats now in control of Congress, the White House will have more trouble selling the nuclear waste recycling and fuel reprocessing program, for which it sought $250 million in fiscal 2007, Hobson told the publication.
"I think the administration is going to have to make a better case than they have made in the past," he said.
The Paducah task force has until Friday to resubmit its request for about $1 million in grant money for a 90-day siting study. DOE first told the group no money would be included for public education locally, but then changed its stance. Besides adding that component, the revised request will omit work on permitting and other issues that DOE said would come later, Martin said.
Martin assured Mayor Bill Paxton, who chairs the task force, that the funding requests of 10 other sites competing against Paducah also are being heavily scrutinized, particularly in light of the funding freeze. Paxton noted that Paducah initially was told it was among four communities competing for $20 million in grant money. Then the number of competitors nearly tripled and the total dropped to $16 million.
"Now they seem to be nickeling and diming us on this," Paxton said.
Task force members said they hope to start some parts of the public-outreach program -- such as a Web site and speakers' bureau -- prior to DOE's March 6 public meeting as part of compiling an environmental impact statement covering all the sites. The Paducah meeting is among 11 planned between Feb. 13 and March 19 at cities nationwide that are vying for the $12 billion to $16 billion project to cut up nuclear fuel rods and chemically treat 2,000 to 3,000 metric tons of spent fuel annually starting in about 2020.
DOE expects to decide by mid-2008 if and where to build the plant, which would create about 5,000 construction jobs.
Copyright (c) 2007, The Paducah Sun, Ky.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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