Fw:Questionable Doctors / Public Citizen press release

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FYI!

Martha Murdock, Director

National Silicone Implant Foundation | Dallas Headquarters

" Supporting Survivors of Medical Implant Devices "

4416 Willow Lane

Dallas, TX 75244-7537

----- Original Message -----

From: " Bradbery " <ABRADBERY@...>

Sent: Wednesday, September 04, 2002 4:56 PM

Subject: Public Citizen press release

Today, Public Citizen added information from 10 states and the District of

Columbia to our Questionable Doctors database, www.questionabledoctors.org,

which contains information about doctors disciplined over the past 10 years.

The states we added were Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, land, Montana, Nevada,

New Mexico, Oklahoma, Virginia and Utah. We now have information about

doctors in 26 states and the District of Columbia on the site, which enables

consumers to check and see if their doctor has been disciplined and if so,

for what. To read the press releases about each state, go to

http://www.citizen.org/hot_issues/issue.cfm?ID=368

* * * * *

We also issued this press release today:

Sept. 4, 2002

Groups File Reply Brief in Case Against EPA's Yucca Mountain Standards, Seek

Stronger Radiation Protection Rule

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Seven environmental and public interest organizations

suing the federal government over its weakening of groundwater standards for

the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump have asked the court to require the

government to strengthen a rule regarding how to measure contamination from

the dump. The request, contained in a reply brief filed jointly with the

state of Nevada late Tuesday to the United States Court of Appeals for the

D.C. Circuit, is part of a legal challenge to the Environmental Protection

Agency's (EPA's) radiation standards for the proposed storage of nuclear

waste at the site.

The proposed high-level nuclear waste dump would sit atop an underground

aquifer that area residents rely on for drinking water. National and

Nevada-based environmental and public interest organizations contend that

the EPA illegally weakened groundwater protection standards at Yucca

Mountain to allow the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) to proceed with its

flawed plan to create a national nuclear waste dump at the site. The case

has been consolidated with a similar lawsuit brought by the state of Nevada.

A primary issue is the compliance boundary - the distance from the proposed

repository within which no limit will be placed on the amount of radioactive

contamination in the groundwater. In its Yucca Mountain rule, the EPA

changed that distance from three miles to more than 11 miles, so a cap on

the amount of contamination that can seep from the dump would begin only at

a line drawn 11 miles from the dump.

In a response filed last month, the EPA said its congressional mandate to

establish a site-specific standard for radiation protection at Yucca

Mountain gave it the right to weaken the rule as it did. But in the reply

brief yesterday, the groups maintained that EPA's action undermines the

requirements of the Safe Drinking Water Act.

" The EPA's Yucca Mountain rule assumes the proposed repository will leak and

inappropriately allows the DOE to rely on dilution in order to meet national

standards. The agency should not be permitted to misuse its discretionary

powers to undermine the Safe Drinking Water Act in this way, " said Geoff

Fettus, attorney with the Natural Resources Defense Council, lead

petitioners in the case.

" The Yucca Mountain 'house of cards' rests on a regulatory structure that

has been ridiculously weakened by the Bush administration, " said Gue,

senior energy analyst with Public Citizen, another petitioner. " By taking

this issue to court, we are challenging the EPA's presumption that public

health and the environmental regulations can be sacrificed for nuclear

industry interests. "

The DOE's controversial Yucca Mountain site recommendation won congressional

approval in July. The agency must now apply for a license to construct and

operate a nuclear waste dump from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The

licensing process will assess projected compliance with the EPA radiation

protection standards.

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