Wednesday, April 22, 1998 | 10:08 a.m.
Sens. Harry Reid and Richard Bryan, D-Nev., said Tuesday they will wait and see what version of a temporary nuclear waste storage bill Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., will present before attacking it.
Both senators vowed to proceed with enough stumbling blocks to prevent the bill's passage before Memorial Day.
Reid and Bryan said they are prepared to uphold a promised presidential veto of any temporary nuclear waste storage bill if it passes Congress.
Lott said the Senate was "right on the verge" of having enough votes to override a threatened White House veto of a bill to open temporary nuclear waste storage at the Nevada Test Site by 2002. Lott needs 67 votes to override a presidential veto.
"This is an issue that is, you know, it's there," Lott said Monday during a press briefing. "It's not getting better. It's getting worse. And we need to make some decisions on that."
Lott referred to the missed deadline for the U.S. Department of Energy to start accepting thousands of tons of highly radioactive waste from commercial power plants. Some utilities and states have sued the DOE to force it to accept the irradiated fuel rods after the Jan. 31 deadline passed.
The senator also said he thought President Clinton might re-assess his veto threat.
But Sen. Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said the president was committed to a veto on a temporary nuclear waste storage site in Nevada. Clinton said temporary nuclear storage at the Nevada Test Site counters the scientific work at Yucca Mountain, the only site Congress chose to study as the world's first permanent high-level nuclear waste dump.
If Lott could introduce a motion to proceed with a temporary storage bill by Friday, Congress would need eight days to process it, said Derek Jumpers, Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee staffer.
"That's the best case scenario," Jumpers said. "Much of what will happen in the next week or two is in the leader's hands."
There is no language drafted for a new bill.
As soon as Lott notifies the Senate on the intent to proceed with the bill, however, Reid and Bryan can begin procedural tactics such as filibusters to stall the legislation.
Lott faces a May 23 deadline when Congress will recess for a week to move the bill through the Senate and the House.
Congressional staff have been meeting informally since March over the legislation. Their meetings have picked up the pace in the last week or two.
Rep. Thomas Bliley, R-Va., who heads the House Commerce Committee, and Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee agreed to bypass formal procedures to paper over major differences between the House and Senate versions of the temporary nuclear waste storage bills.
Staff members said Tuesday that it appeared Lott would introduce a bill with language close to the House bill, which brought objections from some senators. Sen. John Chaffee, R-R.I., is a key vote on the issue. He voted with Nevada on the temporary storage issue in 1996 and against in 1997. He said he does not favor the House legislation.
If House and Senate staff can strike a deal in their informal meetings on language for the bill, it will cut Bryan and Reid's delaying tactics from six to three moves.
In the fall, the House and Senate were close to agreeing on a temporary storage bill until Reps. John Ensign and James Gibbons, both R-Nev., noted that the bill could not be voted on because it involved tax and revenue measures. By law, such funding matters must begin in the House. The arcane and unusual measure scuttled all of the Senate's previous work on its nuclear waste bill.
The Senate was forced to start over by re-approving the bill and hammering out differences in an attempt to avoid conference committee delays between the two houses.
The House passed its original bill with a two-thirds majority, but the Senate was two votes shy of the 67 needed to override a presidential veto.
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