Nevadans stymie Senate action

Friday, July 12, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

Republican senators took turns today blasting their Democratic colleagues from Nevada for preventing the Senate from doing business for a second day.

Sens. Richard Bryan and Harry Reid are using tactical procedures to hold up the Senate as a maneuver to kill a bill to store high-level nuclear waste at the Nevada Test Site.

GOP senators are fuming, with one calling the effort "pure sabotage," because they want to act on 12 unfinished spending bills before they recess for the Nov. 5 election. Several senators criticized Reid and Bryan for creating legislative gridlock.

Nevada's senators were unfazed by the assault.

"I am prepared to object to every measure before the Senate in order to stop this unnecessary and dangerous nuclear waste bill from moving forward," Reid said this morning. "There is no room for negotiation on a matter of such importance to Nevada and the country."

Reid said Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., could resume activity in the Senate by shelving the nuclear waste bill.

"The only reason this measure is being steamrolled through Congress is because the powerful and deep-pocketed nuclear utility industry has placed enormous pressure on the majority leader and others to swiftly solve its waste disposal problem," Reid said.

A vote to end Nevada's stalling tactic -- known as cloture -- is set for 10 a.m. Tuesday.

Reid and Bryan have vowed to do everything possible to stop the bill sponsored by Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, that would change the current law that prevents temporary storage of nuclear waste in Nevada.

"The big power companies want to change this law and shove it into Nevada," Reid said. But the plan to store nuclear waste in Nevada threatens every state where a road or railroad track runs, he said.

The nuclear power industry "spent billions of dollars of ratepayers' money to force it into Nevada," Reid said. "They failed to say it would go through these other states."

With an average of 60 road and rail accidents a month, Reid said it isn't worth it to move the radioactive spent fuel from 110 reactors sites around the country.

"We're going to do everything we can to protect our rights," Reid said.

"We senators from Nevada are fighting for our lives," Bryan said. "The legislation on nuclear waste storage is without precedent."

Congress has stumbled in its efforts to solve the nuclear waste issue, Lott, said Thursday during a second day of delay and disarray.

"We have a real environmental disaster pending in America," Lott said. He named Minnesota, Vermont, Idaho and South Carolina as states with commercial nuclear wastes cooling in pools.

Current law exempts Nevada from becoming a temporary storage site because it is already under consideration for the nation's permanent nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The Energy Department said its scientists should decide whether the site is suitable within two years.

Congress "has been derelict" in addressing nuclear waste, Lott said, while France, Great Britain and Japan have dealt with it.

When asked if he would be willing to fight the filibuster, Lott replied, "I would be prepared to force that. If I don't get cloture and the gridlock continues, I would force that."

Lott said the temporary nuclear waste storage bill has bipartisan support. "Once we get a vote, it'll probably pass 98-2," he said, adding he had 65 votes to win cloture.

While noting that Reid and Bryan have a right to object, Lott said, "At some point we can't allow one senator or a few senators to hold up congressional business."

The House has refused to deal with temporary nuclear waste storage, unless the Senate acts first.

While 12 spending bills are left to be addressed, the $245 billion defense appropriations bill was the one held hostage as the Nevada senators fought temporary nuclear waste storage Thursday.