Berkley criticized for her vote on appropriations bill

Tuesday, Aug. 3, 1999 | 5:29 a.m.

The vote is being criticized by Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., as evidence that the state's congressional delegation is not unified against nuclear waste storage in Nevada.

Gibbons contends Berkley should have opposed the bill.

Berkley's July 27 vote for the House Energy and Water Appropriations Bill "permits an opportunity for those who want to send nuclear waste to Nevada to say we're not unified against it," Gibbons said.

He is also upset because no money was included for state and local governments to oversee the placement of nuclear waste in Nevada.

"About $5 million expected for the state and about $5 million for counties and cities wasn't in there," said Gibbons, who had tried to include those amounts.

But Berkley rejected his interpretation.

"I joined 400 plus colleagues to vote for an appropriations bill that had $20 million for flood control," she said. "In my district, that's essential. Maybe Jim Gibbons doesn't care that half of Southern Nevada was under water last month, but I do."

To vote against the bill "would have been a dereliction of duty" after the flooding in June, she said.

Gibbons was one of only eight who voted against the bill, with 420 voting in favor.

When Berkley's Republican predecessor, John Ensign, cast a somewhat similar vote in 1995, Democratic Sen. Harry Reid made it a political issue in their 1998 Senate campaign, saying Ensign favored nuclear waste in Nevada.