Last month, over 800 people asked their Senators to prevent the U.S. Department of Energy from shirking its responsibilities for cleaning up its nuclear waste sites. The Department of Energy wants to cover the sites with cement and abandon the nuclear waste in aging, leaking tanks, turning nuclear waste sites that should be cleaned up into radioactive waste dumps.

Now we've started an online petition that will be sent to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, and Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner asking them to drop this proposal because it would threaten our water with severe contamination and hamper radioactive cleanup throughout the country.

Please take a moment to sign this online petition and make sure nuclear waste is properly cleaned up. Then, ask your family and friends to help by forwarding this e-mail to them.

To take action, click on this link: pirg.org/alerts/route.asp?id=181&id4=OHFreep

Background

A section of the U.S. Senate's budget bill for the Defense Department would allow the U.S. Department of Energy to not carry out the waste management requirements of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act in South Carolina. The budget bill is S. 2400, the "National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2005," and the sections are 3116 and 3119. This would also require Washington and Idaho agree to these lower cleanup standards or lose funding for the cleanup of nuclear waste sites in their states.

Section 3116 would allow the U.S. Department of Energy to abandon millions of gallons of high-level radioactive waste in South Carolina. Instead of properly managing this waste, the Department of Energy would be able to proceed with a plan to simply fill the aging storage tanks containing waste residue with concrete. This would create high-level waste dumps at the site, threatening vital water supplies that are used for drinking, irrigation, fishing, and recreation.

Section 3116 would also overturn a ruling by a federal court in Idaho that prohibited the Department of Energy from unilaterally reclassifying radioactive waste and give the Department of Energy the sole authority to determine which radioactive waste may be classified as "high-level" in South Carolina.

Section 3119 would withhold $350 million in essential cleanup funds until the states of Washington and Idaho also agree to adopt the Department of Energy's weakened cleanup standards.

Both of these provisions would also set a dangerous precedent that will make it easier to avoid proper cleanup of radioactive waste in other states.

We cannot let our health and environment be further contaminated because of the Department of Energy's failure to adequately clean up this nuclear waste. Please take a moment to ask Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, and Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner to take sections 3116 and 3119 out of the Defense Authorization bill. Then ask your family and friends to help by forwarding this e-mail to them.

To take action, click on this link: pirg.org/alerts/route.asp?id=181&id4=OHFreep