Nuke waste motion fails

Mark D. Preston

Wednesday, June 3, 1998 | 9:55 a.m.

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Nevada narrowly avoided becoming the temporary host for the nation's high-level nuclear waste Tuesday thanks to three unlikely allies: tobacco, President Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

These three powerful Washington players combined to kill a Senate motion that, if passed, could have led to the temporary storage of high-level radioactive waste at the Nevada Test Site.

Only 56 senators voted for a motion to require a vote on the waste issue -- four short of the 60 votes needed to halt a filibuster. It was also 11 shy of the margin needed to override a presidential veto. The final vote was 56 for the motion, 39 against. If the motion had passed, the Senate would have voted on the waste measure later this year.

This is the third consecutive year of failure for a bill requiring Nevada to accept the nation's nuclear waste on an interim basis until a permanent site is found.

The most recent failure occurred in part because an anti-tobacco bill, sponsored by Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., had the full attention of the Senate. That, coupled with Clinton's promise to veto any bill on temporary storage of nuclear waste and Gingrich's decision Monday to withhold action on such legislation, was enough to sway the Senate vote.

"I think it is a combination of these things that allowed us to get the best vote on the issue," Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., said, adding that it was a "red-letter day for Nevada."

Bryan and Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., threatened to tie up all other legislation, including the controversial tobacco bill, during impassioned speeches from the Senate floor.

"It was not about one person complaining," Reid said after the vote. "It was about two people (Bryan and himself) being enraged about what was going on."

Nevada's senators, with the help of Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., were able to weave a web that appeared to connect the interests of the tobacco lobbyists with those of the nuclear-power industry. They accused opponents of the pending tobacco legislation of hiding behind the nuclear-waste bill to halt action on the tobacco bill.

"This was a hidden agenda to kill the tobacco bill," Bryan said. "Many of our colleagues viewed it this way, and that is why they joined us."

Reid said the bill's main proponent, Senate Energy and Natural Resources Chairman Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, assured him after the vote he would not bring the bill up again this year.

"This is a very important day for the people of the state of Nevada," Reid said. "Fairness and justice prevailed over the greed of the nuclear utilities."