Nevada officials praise Clinton for vetoing nuke waste bill

Angie Wagner

Wednesday, April 26, 2000 | 10:10 a.m.

They knew it was coming, but Nevada officials on Tuesday were relieved that President Clinton vetoed a bill that would have shipped thousands of tons of nuclear waste to the state.

"The president's veto has always been the lynchpin of our strategy in the Senate," said Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev.

The legislation Clinton vetoed would have cleared that way for highly radioactive nuclear waste to be shipped to Yucca Mountain from commercial reactors in 31 states.

Clinton had said he would veto the bill, and neither the House nor Senate approved the measure by the two-thirds majority needed to override a veto. The House approved it 252-167 and the Senate 64-34.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., praised Clinton for putting "public health and safety above protecting the nuclear industry's bottom line."

The legislation would have required used nuclear fuel begin to be shipped to Nevada in 2007, once the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approves a license for a permanent waste site in the state.

The NRC is expected to decide as early as 2006 on whether the Yucca Mountain underground nuclear waste repository 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas should be licensed. Now under scientific review, the site is proposed for opening in 2010.

It is the only site the Department of Energy is studying to dispose of the nation's nuclear waste.

Bob Loux, executive director of the state's Nuclear Projects Agency, which oversees the Department of Energy's Yucca studies, said Clinton did the right thing. "It's common sense to us," he said.

Jack Finn, spokesman for Gov. Kenny Guinn, said the governor would have liked to have seen less partisanship in the nuclear waste debate, but, "We were certainly very pleased."

Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said Clinton's past veto threat "greatly aided our delegation's efforts to stop this nuclear waste legislation from becoming law."

U.S. Senate candidates Ed Bernstein and John Ensign also weighed in on the issue.

Bernstein was in Washington on Tuesday for a news conference hosted by Democrats and environmental groups to celebrate the veto.

"But the sad reality is that Nevadans are never going to be safe from this threat until Democrats are in control of the agenda in Congress. Republicans have shown time and time again that they are willing to carry the nuclear industry's dirty water on this issue," he said.

Ensign, a Republican, said it was important "to set aside our partisan labels on issues that affect our state like this one."

Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska and head of the Energy and Resources Committee, and other supporters of the legislation vowed to try and override the veto, beginning in the Senate.

Meanwhile, at Yucca Mountain on Tuesday it was work as usual.

"We're out here doing good science and engineering and remain away from the politics," said Jim Niggemyer, senior field engineer for the Yucca Mountain project. "We're still on the schedule we intended to be on.

"This is a very political project. If you work out here and don't understand that, you're going to go out of your mind. You'll be very frustrated."