House to consider nuke waste bill

Benjamin Grove

Friday, March 17, 2000 | 12:03 p.m.

WASHINGTON -- House Majority Leader Dick Armey on Thursday said the House will consider a bill that sets rules for burying the nation's nuclear waste in Nevada -- legislation that President Clinton has threatened to veto.

The Senate passed the bill last month, 64-34. Nevada officials who have been fighting the plan to entomb 77,000 tons of highly radioactive waste inside Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, cheered the vote because 34 votes is all the Senate needs to sustain a presidential veto.

Bill watchers have wondered whether the House this year would bother to debate and pass legislation that seemed doomed on the other side of Congress. But Armey said the House could debate the bill as early as Wednesday.

"We can't not do our work just because the president has threatened to veto the bill," Brenna Hapes, a spokeswoman for Armey, R-Texas, said today. "We need to do something. This is the best chance we have of getting this to the president."

The House could try to amend the Senate bill, making it palatable enough that several senators would change their votes and support the bill. If the bill were amended, it would be sent to a conference committee, a gathering of members of the Senate and House who would try to strike a compromise between the two bills.

But Hapes said, "The whole point is to avoid a conference report. We know the Nevada senators would filibuster a conference report."

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said, "If we don't stand up and collectively say a resounding 'no' then we're going to end up with 77,000 tons of nuclear waste in our back yard."