Nevadans applaud Clinton for nuke bill veto

Benjamin Grove

Wednesday, April 26, 2000 | 11:20 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- President Clinton on Tuesday vetoed a bill that would have shipped nuclear waste to Nevada by 2007, effectively killing the legislation for the year. The Senate is likely to vote to sustain the veto as early as Thursday.

"I can't say enough about the courage of the president," Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said after witnessing the veto in a private Oval Office ceremony. "He stared down the very powerful, money-laden nuclear power industry, for which we are very grateful."

Clinton vetoed the bill behind closed doors at the White House about 6:20 p.m. EDT with Nevada Democrats at his side. His primary objection was that the legislation took some authority away from the Environmental Protection Agency to set radiation standards for the mountain, he said after the veto.

The bill would have sped up shipments of the nation's nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Bill supporters, chiefly GOP leaders such as House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., denounced the veto as the "unwise course."

"What kind of legacy is President Clinton leaving our children if he won't allow nuclear waste to be housed in one, scientifically safe location -- as opposed to the 140 disparate sites from coast-to-coast?" Hastert said in a written statement.

The nuclear energy industry now turns to Congress to override the veto and "provide the environmental leadership that is absent at the White House," said Joe Colvin, president of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's chief lobbying arm.

But the Senate and House are expected to have enough votes to sustain the veto, although Hastert has been trying to round up enough votes in the House to override the veto. If the Senate sustains the veto, it would not have to go to the House.

"Always have a vote count -- that's my job," said Reid, Senate minority whip, who is responsible for rounding up Democrats on Senate votes. "We have enough to sustain the veto."

Despite the veto, the Yucca proposal is not dead. Department of Energy workers will continue studies at Yucca pending possible future approval of the site by Congress, the president and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. And Republican leaders have vowed to revive nuclear waste legislation next year.

Until then the issue will live on as a volatile political creature in Nevada.

"The contrast is stark between the Democrats and Republicans on this issue," state Democratic Party chairman Rory Reid, son of Harry Reid, said Tuesday at a press conference in Las Vegas. "The only reason we don't have nuclear waste in Nevada right now is the Democrats in Congress and the White House."

Nevada Republican Party director Ryan Erwin said Democrats are playing the nuclear waste card because they can't compete on other issues. "It's a joke that this is getting any attention at all as a political issue," Erwin said. "It's a Nevada issue. We ought to be working together on this."

Candidates already have used the issue to paint themselves as true heroes in the waste fight.

"It is the defining issue (of the campaign)," said Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., who faces a race with Republican state Sen. Jon Porter.

Berkley has slammed Porter for associating with Hastert, who held a March fund-raiser for Porter in Las Vegas just a few days before Hastert pushed the nuclear waste bill in the House. The issue creates a Democrats versus Republicans matchup, Berkley said.

"The numbers speak for themselves," Berkley said. "When only 18 Republicans sided with Nevada in the House, you know there is a tide, there is a trend. The trend is for Democrats to support the state of Nevada on this issue."

Porter recently has pointed to the eight years of ongoing study and flow of federal money to the Yucca project.

"This is a sinister charade," Porter said. "Even the president has said that the date of Yucca opening is 2010. If the president and Shelley Berkley really want to stop Yucca Mountain, they have to remove the $350 million (annual Yucca) budget."

The issue also is a hot potato in the Senate race between Las Vegas attorney Ed Bernstein, a Democrat, and his Republican opponent, former Rep. John Ensign. Ensign repeatedly has stressed his opposition to nuclear waste in Nevada.

"John Ensign has said time and time again that if this fight puts him against his party, so be it," Ensign's campaign chairman Pete Ernaut said in an earlier interview. "It reinforces a point: Nevada desperately needs a Republican in the Senate on this issue. Right now we are only fighting this battle on one side."

Bernstein countered during a Tuesday press conference that "Nevada is never going to be safe from this threat until the Republican leadership is no longer the leadership."

Nevada's Democrats in Congress -- Berkley, Reid and Sen. Richard Bryan -- held the press conference at the Capitol, inviting Bernstein and six environmental groups to share in celebration of the veto.

Absent was Nevada's lone Republican in Congress, Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., who has battled alongside Berkley in the House against the bill.

"I wasn't invited" to the veto ceremony, Gibbons said. Gibbons was in Nevada holding town hall meetings this week. He added in a written statement, "Be assured that Nevada's united delegation will never stop its fight in Congress."

Reid at the press conference admitted the nuclear waste issue is partisan.

"It's a little hard to be bi-partisan when 90 percent of one party is opposing you," Reid said.

The nuclear waste issue is "gift wrapped" for both Nevada Republicans and Democrats because public opinion is so far on one side of the issue, UNLV political science professor Ted Jelen said. The nuclear waste plan allows candidates to line up on the side of the environment and state's rights, Jelen added.

"Candidates love that kind of issue," Jelen said.

Even Nuclear Energy Institute officials said Nevada Democrats and Republicans seem equally opposed to nuclear waste being stored in the state.

"It's hard to out hate the bill (in Nevada)," NEI spokesman Steve Unglesbee.

The nuclear waste issue also has seeped into presidential politics in Nevada. Nevada Democrats say Al Gore is the state's only hope of keeping waste out of the state. Republican Gov. Kenny Guinn and Gibbons say Bush has pledged to keep an open mind on the issue. Neither Bush nor Gore has said they oppose the concept of the plan.

Sun reporter Mary Manning contributed to this report.