Senators gear for next round of Yucca battles

Benjamin Grove

Sunday, Dec. 5, 1999 | 9:35 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The Senate's two leading supporters of storing nuclear waste in Nevada are preparing for fierce battle with Nevada Sens. Richard Bryan and Harry Reid.

Sens. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, and Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, want to send the nation's nuclear waste -- eventually 77,000 tons -- to Nevada for permanent storage. Waste now stored at nuclear power plants across the nation would be shipped to Yucca Mountain 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas as early as 2007, according to the latest nuclear waste storage bill.

Craig and Murkowski are gearing up for another debate on the bill to come after Congress resumes Jan. 24. The two will continue to clash with Bryan and Reid, Democrats who are well known for opposing waste storage in Nevada.

"The biggest problem is what to do with the waste and in this country it's a political problem," Craig said. "It's not a scientific problem. It's not an engineering problem. It's purely political -- 'Not In My Back Yard.' "

Murkowski and Craig spoke recently with the Sun in separate interviews. Together they received more than $140,000 from nuclear industry-related political action committees between 1994 and 1998.

"This is something the country has to do," Craig said. "We cannot sit idly by and let nuclear waste pile up across the country."

The waste debate likely could come down to an important issue: Who should set standards for radiation emitted by stored waste at Yucca Mountain? Reid and Bryan advocate the Environmental Protection Agency's standard: 15 millirem per year, with a separate 4 millirem standard for ground water.

Craig and Murkowski prefer the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's standard: 25 millirem.

"What we want is to make sure that the measuring is under a regulation that allows waste to go to Yucca," Murkowski said.

Craig and Murkowski say the EPA standard is so low it could disqualify Yucca as a waste site.

"The EPA has reduced the radiation standard to a drinking water standard that is unreasonable and unrealistic," Craig said. "If anyone sits in front of the TV, you will receive more radiation than is being proposed for Yucca Mountain."

Bryan and Reid say the Nuclear Regulatory Commission should not set standards because it has a cozy relationship with power plants.

"(Murkowski and Craig) can't say, 'We don't like what the EPA says.' They can't just pick another agency that agrees with their position," Reid said in a recent interview with the Sun.

The Nevada senators said they were confident 32 other senators would oppose the bill -- enough to sustain a veto, which President Clinton has threatened to use if the bill passes.

"The lynchpin of all of this has always been the presidential veto," Bryan told the Sun.

Craig said the Nevada senators have used "inflammatory rhetoric" in attempts to kill the bill. Both Craig and Murkowski say Nevada's senators are unfairly trying to scare other senators by overstating the dangers of transporting waste. Military waste has been moved around the United States for years without one injury, they argue.

"Clearly, you can move the stuff safely," Murkowski said. He added, "They move it in Europe all the time, by ship, by train, by truck. It can be very easily done."

Craig and Murkowski are upset that Congress has allowed nuclear waste to accumulate for so long at the nation's power plants and at Department of Defense sites.

It's safer, cheaper and more efficient to store the waste in one place, Craig said. Yucca seems the safest place to store it, he said. Scientists have been studying Yucca for years to determine if it's the best location for waste, with no final conclusions.

Murkowski assumed the lead role in advocating Yucca because he is chairman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, he said. Alaska has no stored nuclear waste.

"I have an obligation to address the oversight and we all have a responsibility to do something with it," Murkowski said. He said Clinton was irresponsible for "ducking" the issue.

"They don't want to have to do it on their watch," Murkowski said. "Our technology created this and we have a responsibility to resolve this. Our bottom line is that we welcome a better solution. This is what Congress decided a long time ago -- long before I got here -- that this is what we would do.'

Craig and Murkowski said they support funding for accelerated transmutation, a process of breaking down waste faster than it would normally decay, but not in lieu of proceeding with Yucca. The government needs to pursue both transmutation technology and permanent waste storage at Yucca, they said.

Craig said senators are likely to debate the nuke waste issue for more than a week in February or March.

"It's been debated quite a bit," Murkowski said. "There's not a lot left to debate. I think the temperament of the senators is that if it isn't us, then it will be those that follow. It won't go away."