Lott tells Reid nuke waste bill won’t be debated until next year

Benjamin Grove

Thursday, Nov. 11, 1999 | 11:10 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., told Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., privately on Wednesday that he would not bring up the nuclear waste bill in Congress this session, Reid said.

"But that's not a lot of solace to me," said Reid, Senate Minority Whip. "We've still got to fight this battle next year."

Lott, who controls which issues are raised in the Senate, now plans to call for debate and a vote on the nuclear waste bill early next session, which begins in January.

"The sand is running out of the hour glass this session," Lott's chief spokesman John Cwartacki told the Sun Wednesday. "This bill obviously needs some time for debate and if that is what it takes, then we are committed to doing it early next year."

The bill establishes a new timeline beginning in 2007 for bringing the nation's nuclear waste -- eventually 77,000 tons of it -- to Nevada for permanent storage inside a repository about 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The waste now sits at nuclear power plants and Department of Defense sites scattered across the country.

The Nevada delegation in Congress has strongly opposed nuclear waste storage legislation for years.

Until this week, Lott and Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, the bill's strongest supporter, have said they could call for a vote on the bill even in the waning days of the session. Reid and Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., threatened days of endless debate to discourage them.

Congress had been trying to finish its work for the session by yesterday. But it adjourned last night for the Veteran's Day holiday with unfinished business.

Bryan said he was glad to hear the nuclear waste bill seemed dead for now, adding, "I'm never prepared to proclaim victory until the final gavel goes down."

President Clinton last month said he would veto the bill if Congress passed it. Bryan and Reid said they would continue to rally their Senate colleagues for next year's debate.

"We have to make sure we keep our 34 votes," to sustain a veto, Bryan said. "The bill won't be any better in the next millennium than it was in the last."