Nevada senators fight late push for nuke bill

Benjamin Grove

Tuesday, Oct. 26, 1999 | 11:21 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Nevada Sens. Richard Bryan and Harry Reid today promised to fight a last-minute push in Congress to pass a bill that would bring nuclear waste to Nevada as early as 2007.

Senate debate on the bill has been delayed by other business, such as spending bills that keep government running. Some thought that President Clinton's Oct. 1 threat to veto the nuclear waste bill had killed any chances for debate on it this session.

But Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., wants to debate the bill before Congress adjourns in the next week or two. Lott's priorities are the spending bills, an African trade bill, a financial services modernization bill and the nuclear waste bill.

"Once again the nuclear power industry and its high-priced lobbyists are pushing legislation that would endanger millions of lives and would target Nevada as a nuclear graveyard," Reid said in a prepared statement.

Scientists are studying whether Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, is a suitable site to bury up to 70,000 tons of the nation's nuclear waste, which now is stored at commercial reactors and defense sites around the country.

Reid and Bryan pledged to use the filibuster on the Senate floor if necessary to block the latest version of the nuclear waste bill.

"Sen. Reid and I are prepared to use every effort to prevent this legislation from becoming law," Bryan said today.

Reid and Bryan appeared with Reps. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., and Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., at a rally near the Capitol this morning to draw attention to the dangers of transporting the waste by truck and rail across the nation. Gibbons said the Mojave Desert earthquake several weeks ago focused renewed attention on the stability of Yucca Mountain.

"(The quake) derailed a train," Gibbons said. "That very easily could have been carrying one of these casks containing nuclear waste."