An ancient political maxim is to postpone as long as possible a controversial decision--at least until after the next election. That appears to be what's behind Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Federico Peña's announcement last week to delay a decision on whether to reopen a shuttered nuclear reactor at Brookhaven National Lab in Upton, New York, until late 1998. DOE says it wants to wait for results from an environmental impact study, but other government and industry officials claim the real reason is next year's congressional elections.
The lab's High-Flux Beam Reactor (HFBR), a neutron source used for materials research, has remained closed for a year due to a tritium leak that has outraged local Long Island residents. Senator Alfonse D'Amato (R-NY) and Representative Michael Forbes (R-NY) oppose a restart, and both are up for reelection next November. "Peña does not want to give them this issue to run on,'' says one university manager. Reactor advocates hope DOE will have a better shot at reopening the facility once the elections are over.
DOE officials, meanwhile, are carefully distancing themselves from a 22 November report from the
department's basic energy advisory committee that backs a prompt HFBR restart, along with a $150 million upgrade. The study argues that the reactor's continued closure hurts the research community. But in a 10 December statement, DOE energy research chief Martha Krebs cautioned that the report "should not be considered reflective of the department's thinking.''
