Berkley explains vote on waste bill

Tuesday, Aug. 3, 1999 | 11:35 a.m.

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., defended her vote last week for an energy and water appropriations bill because it contained $20 million for Clark County flood control projects.

The bill also contains $169 million to push nuclear waste disposal in Nevada without designating any of the money to state or local government oversight.

Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., is interpreting Berkley's vote as a hint that the Nevada delegation isn't unified against nuclear waste disposal in Nevada.

When former Rep. John Ensign, R-Nev., cast a somewhat similar vote in 1995, Democratic Sen. Harry Reid made a political issue out of it in the 1998 campaign, portraying Ensign as favoring waste in Nevada.

Gibbons voted against the budget bill on July 27 because the state and local governments did not receive any oversight money. It has been the same scenario in every House bill since the Republicans took over Congress in 1994.

But Berkley defended her vote to the entire budget because of the July floods in Las Vegas. The appropriations bill now goes to a conference committee. The Senate bill contains nearly $10 million for the state and local government oversight activities.