Senate delays vote on Yucca bill veto

Benjamin Grove

Thursday, April 27, 2000 | 11:17 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The Senate on Wednesday scheduled a vote on President Clinton's veto of the nuclear waste bill next Tuesday.

Nevada members expect Congress to sustain the veto.

The Senate had considered voting on the veto today but put it off until next week, sparking some speculation that Republicans wanted more time for "whipping" -- collecting votes.

Clinton on Tuesday vetoed the bill that would have brought the nation's nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, as early as 2007 -- three years before the waste dump is scheduled for completion.

The Senate now has the option of voting to override or sustain the veto. The Senate would need 67 votes -- two-thirds of the Senate -- to override. The House then would need to muster two-thirds of its members before Clinton's veto would be thrown out. If the Senate sustains the veto, no House vote would be necessary.

The Senate passed the bill in February, 64-34, just three votes shy of the two-thirds majority. The House approved the bill in March with a 252-167 vote, also short of a two-thirds majority.

Sens. Harry Reid and Richard Bryan, both D-Nev., said they still have at least 32 votes. Reid declined to comment on how he expects individual senators to vote.

"Always have a vote count -- that's my job," Senate Democratic Whip Reid said at a Tuesday press conference, declining to say exactly how many votes he expected. "We have enough to sustain a veto."

Bryan nodded in agreement, adding, "Nevada wins."

But supporters of the bill, Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, say they are near an override vote.

"We're very close," Craig told the Associated Press.

Two senators who may be targets for Murkowski and Craig are Ben Nighthorse Campbell, R-Colo., and Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I. Both voted against the bill in February. A spokesman for Campbell could not confirm the senator's stance today.

Chafee spokesman Jeff Neal said, "I have no indication whatsoever he is going to change his vote." Neal said the Republican bill backers had lobbied Chafee heavily before the February vote, but had not approached Chafee since then.

Meanwhile House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., who has pushed the bill in House, has been trying to collect more votes on his side of the Capitol, aides said.

"If we could see a veto in the Senate, that would give it a lot of momentum, and we could push it across the finish line," Hastert spokesman Pete Jeffries said.

Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., before the president's veto this week, said, "The Republican leadership is pulling out every stop in order to strong arm people in the House to reverse their position to override the veto. Hastert has stated on the record that he has managed to convert 17 votes. Now he is starting on my side of the aisle."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.