Legislators not rushing to fund nuke office

Wednesday, May 6, 1998 | 9:59 a.m.

State legislators want to find out more about a preliminary federal audit before agreeing to give the Nevada Nuclear Waste Projects Office money to survive beyond July 1.

The state office plans to compete for a chunk of the estimated $6 million that Nevada will have left to spend for unforeseen budget shortages in the last half of this year. But office director Bob Loux is certain to face tough questions from lawmakers about the audit, which accused the state of misusing federal funds.

Created in 1983, the state office monitors the U.S. Department of Energy's study of Yucca Mountain 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas as a potential site for the permanent burial of the nation's high-level nuclear waste. The office has operated mostly on federal funds.

But the preliminary audit announced last week found that the office misused federal money on advocacy against proposals to transport nuclear waste to this state. As a result, the DOE froze $691,000 that the state office had left to spend from Congress' fiscal 1995 allocation. State officials were notified of the government's action but hadn't received a copy of the audit as of Tuesday.

Congress cut off new funding for the office beginning in 1996 after an earlier audit that year leveled similar allegations against the state. With the freezing of the $691,000 in unspent funds, the nuclear waste office has only enough money to survive for two more months.

State Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, the Reno Republican who chairs the Legislature's Interim Finance Committee, said Monday he was unfamiliar with the latest audit. But he expressed reservations about committing state funds to the nuclear waste projects office following the 1996 audit. That audit blasted the state for spending some of its federal money on public relations against nuclear waste proposals.

"I've had concerns about that for some time," Raggio said. "We still have to comply with applicable practices."

Raggio said he wants to make sure the state office spends money to monitor the Yucca Mountain study the way Congress intended. Gov. Bob Miller and Nevada's Democratic Sens. Richard Bryan and Harry Reid argued last week that the state has the right to use some of the federal money to disseminate information about nuclear waste. Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., joined that chorus in a written statement.

"The Department of Energy has another thing coming if they think Nevadans, and the rest of the country for that matter, don't have a right to know what foreseeable dire consequences there are in the shipping and storing of high-level nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain," Gibbons stated.

Nevada passed a 1989 law prohibiting the acceptance of shipments of high-level nuclear waste. Such waste is produced by commercial nuclear power plants and government weapons facilities. Anti-dump advocates argue that Yucca Mountain is unsafe for nuclear waste.

But the DOE and Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, who requested the audit, said the state can only use the federal funds to monitor the study. The nuclear power industry, which spends millions of dollars lobbying Congress, has accused the federal government of breaking its promise to find a permanent home for the nation's nuclear waste.

The state normally gives Loux' office only $35,000 to $50,000 a year, a far cry from the millions of dollars it received from Congress.

But state Sen. Bob Coffin, D-Las Vegas, an Interim Finance Committee member who opposes nuclear waste shipments to Nevada, said he supports continued funding for the nuclear waste projects office. Coffin said it was unfair to freeze the entire $691,000.

"Since the DOE is handcuffing our monitoring abilities by handcuffing our funds, we may have to reach into our contingency funds," Coffin said. "We can't lose any ground. We've got to fight the battle to make sure that the correct scientific methods (to study the mountain) are followed."

The Interim Finance Committee, consisting of members of the Senate Finance and Assembly Ways and Means committees, had about $9 million in general funds it could spend between the end of the 1997 Legislature and the beginning of the 1999 session in January. After this week, it will have about $6 million left to spend in contingency funds for the rest of 1998.

Ways and Means Chairman Morse Arberry, D-Las Vegas, said Nevada should keep the nuclear waste projects office open with state funds.

"They have an important function," Arberry said. "I don't want us to be a dump ground. If they're not there, who is going to play watchdog?"

Loux has said he will ask the Interim Finance Committee next month for up to $1.8 million to operate for another year. Before approaching the committee, he'll have to get that request approved by the State Board of Examiners. But the state board, made up of Miller, Attorney General Frankie Sue Del Papa and Secretary of State Dean Heller, is expected to give its approval since all three oppose the Yucca Mountain project.