Feb 08 - Las Vegas Review - Journal

Seeking to soften the blow for workers losing jobs at Yucca Mountain, Nevada lawmakers on Tuesday announced a bid to boost retraining while they pursue other strategies to create more tech jobs in the state.

The five-member delegation urged the Labor Department to step in with emergency job transition funding as the first several dozen employees of Energy Department contractors complete their tenure at the proposed nuclear waste site this week.

Five hundred workers or more will be targeted for layoffs as DOE restructures from a deep budget cut passed by Congress in December, program managers have said.

"These are government-related jobs. It is only fair we have some compassion for these people," Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said at the end of a delegation meeting. "These jobs are hard to come by. A number of them are engineers, scientists and skilled labor."

A $108 million budget cut was arranged by Reid and supported by Nevada leaders who say the Yucca Mountain Project to bury highly radioactive nuclear waste 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas poses dire health, safety and economic threats.

Reid said the job losses, while unfortunate, were anticipated.

"We were all very happy when we were able to get the money cut," he said. "But there have been some hardships as a result."

The lawmakers signed a letter asking Labor Secretary Elaine Chao to make the Yucca project eligible to receive funding from a National Emergency Grant program designed to assist displaced workers. The state or a county could apply for money available after a layoff of more than 50 people at a single site, according to the Labor Department.

As Nevada officials continue efforts to downsize Yucca, "there are many valuable workers who will need to transition to other jobs," declared the letter to Chao, which was signed by Reid and Sen. John Ensign, and Reps. Shelley Berkley, Jon Porter and Dean Heller.

"We want to keep these types of jobs in Nevada," Berkley said, while Heller likened the effort to the economic stimulus bill Congress is moving to pass.

"People in Nevada want to stop Yucca Mountain, but we also feel compassion for the people who are working there today," Ensign said.

Sixty-three workers at the Yucca site who received layoff notices earlier this month are completing their employment this week, according to DOE officials. Another group of more than 100 will receive 30-day job notices next week.

Ward Sproat, director of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management, said earlier this month that at least 500 workers will be laid off in the coming months as DOE resizes the project to fit its scaled-back funding from Congress.

The DOE and its contractors employed 2,400 full-time positions on the project before the layoffs.

Reid proposed diverting a portion of the money cut from the Yucca budget, perhaps 20 percent, into worker placement and retraining in Nevada and other parts of the country.

Porter suggested the state develop research capabilities in nuclear waste reprocessing.

Ensign said he and Reid are exploring legislation that would encourage broader use of Nevada Test Site programs that could create engineering and other technical jobs.

Cost-sharing rules make it expensive for federal agencies and private companies to conduct research on the sprawling desert range, Ensign said.

The test site hosts programs for anti-terrorism training, nuclear weapons maintenance, low-level nuclear waste disposal and an area on Frenchman Flat 75 miles northwest of Las Vegas called the Nonproliferation Test and Evaluation Complex. Formerly known as the Hazmat Spill Center, it is the world's largest complex for field- testing releases of toxic chemicals and biological material.

Contact Stephens Washington Bureau Chief Steve Tetreault at stetreault@stephensmedia.com or (202) 783-1760.

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