Reid vows to block Johnston in Cabinet

Benjamin Grove

Tuesday, Dec. 19, 2000 | 11:29 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., sent a strong message today to President-elect George W. Bush: don't hire former Sen. Bennett Johnston as your Energy secretary.

Reid said the former Louisiana Democrat is a champion of the nuclear power industry and a strong proponent of a proposal to open the nation's nuclear waste dump at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Johnston was the author of the 1987 so-called "Screw Nevada" bill that designated Yucca as the only site under consideration as the nation's first high-level nuclear waste dump.

Reid this morning saw a short list of potential Energy secretaries in a Bush Cabinet and called Johnston, Reid said later at a Capitol Hill press conference on nuclear waste issues.

"The name (Johnston) leaped out so hard I couldn't wait to get to the office and find out if it was a serious matter," Reid said.

Reid did not divulge much of the conversation but said, "I said Bennett, 'I like you a lot, but I am going to do everything I can to keep you from getting this job.' "

Senators likely will be holding confirmation hearings on Bush's Cabinet next month.

"We're not going to reveal our strategy," Reid spokesman Mark Schuermann said. "Needless to say, senators have the power to object."

Reid said Johnston told him he was "thinking about" being Energy secretary, but it is not clear how seriously Bush is considering him as a front-runner for the job.

Johnston did not return calls today to his Washington office. He was unavailable, his assistant said.

Johnston was a senator from 1973 through 1996. He now runs Johnston & Associates, a consulting firm that deals in part with energy issues and has an array of clients, including utilities.

The Department of Energy post is important to Nevada because the DOE is overseeing studies at Yucca Mountain and is drafting site suitability studies. Nevada officials oppose the federal plan to bury 77,000 tons of highly radioactive waste from the nation's nuclear power plants in the state.

"It would be terrible for those of us who don't believe in nuclear power," Reid said of a Johnston appointment.

Several environmentalists agreed.

Johnston's appointment would be "tantamount to a declaration of war on the environment," said Michael Mariotte of the Nuclear Information Resource Service.

In other related news at today's press conference, an aide to Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said he would call for a possible General Accounting Office investigation of bias inside the DOE toward approving the Yucca project before scientific studies prove it is safe.

Nevada lawmakers called for the DOE's inspector general to investigate bias, and that investigation has been launched, Reid said today.

The GAO is Congress' investigative arm and would be a separate investigation.