Gibbons urges Clinton to reiterate Yucca stance

Thursday, Sept. 30, 1999 | 11:42 a.m.

Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., urged President Clinton to use his Las Vegas fund-raising visit on Friday to reassure residents that he is committed to veto a bill that would send highly radioactive waste to Nevada.

Clinton is scheduled to travel to Las Vegas to attend a campaign fund-raising luncheon for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., has talked to White House Chief of Staff John A. Podesta about the importance of persuading the president to make a commitment on the veto, a Reid spokesman said this morning.

In the past Clinton's veto threat has halted efforts in both the House and the Senate to pass legislation that would send thousands of tons of nuclear waste to the Nevada Test Site while the Department of Energy studies Yucca Mountain as a permanent nuclear waste repository.

President Clinton has threatened to veto any legislation that allows temporary storage of high-level nuclear waste in Nevada until scientific studies at Yucca Mountain are complete.

However, the White House has not taken a formal stance on the current bill, Clinton press aide Elizabeth Newman said Wednesday.

"We're unclear about the president's current stance on this issue that is very important to Nevadans," Gibbons said. "During his trip on Friday, the president needs to reassure Nevadans of his promise to veto this awful legislation."

The Senate bill offered by Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, does not require temporary radioactive waste storage, but it does allow nuclear utilities to begin shipping their wastes to Yucca Mountain in 2007, three years before a repository is expected to be ready.

The bill also allows the Nuclear Regulatory Commission -- not the Environmental Protection Agency -- to set radiation limits for the repository.

That is a concern for the White House, Newman said.

The NRC has proposed a standard for Yucca Mountain of 25 millirems of radiation -- the equivalent of about five chest X-rays -- that nearby residents would be exposed to per year, with no limit on how much can escape through the ground water.

The commission is responsible for licensing any repository and its Chairwoman Greta Dicus said in the most recent issue of the Nuclear Energy Institute's newsletter that there is no meaningful difference between the proposed NRC standard and EPA's limit of 15 millirems -- about three chest X-rays -- with a ground water limit of 4 millirems per year.

Gibbons blasted the House approval on Monday of an Energy Department budget containing $352 million for continued study of Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The congressman also said he sent a letter to Clinton on Sept. 10 asking for confirmation of his veto. The letter has not been answered.

The White House staff has said Clinton expects to take a position on the legislation once the Senate schedules it for debate.