House set to pass nuclear waste bill

Benjamin Grove

Wednesday, March 22, 2000 | 11:21 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The House today debated a bill that would launch shipments of nuclear waste to Nevada by 2007 for permanent storage. A vote was likely today and passage was expected.

The Senate passed the same bill Feb. 10, 64-34, so if the House passes the legislation it will be sent to President Clinton for signature. Clinton has threatened to veto the bill, and the Senate needs only 34 votes to sustain it.

"As the president has stated before, if this bill is presented to him he will veto it," Clinton Chief of Staff John Podesta on Tuesday wrote in a letter to House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill. Hastert is pushing the bill. He has 11 nuclear power plants in his state.

Nevada's two House members fought the bill on the floor today and behind-the-scenes this week, calling on colleagues to vote against it.

Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., on Tuesday said the bill "endangers the lives of not just Nevadans but everyone along the transportation routes."

Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said, "The House leadership bringing up this bill when it is going to be vetoed by the president ... is a big waste of time."

Scientists are studying Yucca Mountain 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas to determine whether it is a suitable place to bury 77,000 tons of highly radioactive nuclear waste, now stored on-site at 103 nuclear power plants nationwide.

Congress has been trying to pass bills that establish guidelines for shipping the waste to Nevada.

The bill approved today would ship the waste to Yucca by 2007, three years before Yucca is scheduled for completion. That was one of a number of objections made by Gibbons and Berkley.

"The bill itself is fatally flawed, it creates interim storage ... without so much as putting a roof over the head of the waste that would be stored there," said Gibbons. Yucca Mountain is in Gibbon's district.

Gibbons Tuesday night introduced 12 amendments to the bill, and Berkley introduced three at a House Rules Committee meeting. But the committee voted to discard the amendments, along with nine other amendments offered by several other representatives.

The committee then voted to consider no amendments to the bill during today's floor debate.

Gibbons and Berkley fumed. Gibbons pointed out that the bill had not even had a House committee hearing.

"Nevada has not had a voice on this issue," Gibbons said on the floor.

Gibbons' amendments sought a variety of actions, such as certifying emergency teams that would respond to a waste-toting truck accident, compensating property owners for devalued land due to the dump and prohibiting the dump unless the governor agreed to it.

Berkley sought to prohibit the dump if the site was found to be at risk for volcanic activity or a 5.0 earthquake on the Richter Scale.

Both members wanted to prohibit transportation of waste near school zones.

"The amendments I propose will not make this ugly frog a handsome prince, by no means," Gibbons said.

"My amendments are designed to kill this piece of legislation," Berkley said in an interview.

Gibbons today also made a point of order that the bill required unfunded mandates that would burden taxpayers, a legislative tactic designed to establish that a bill violates a House rule.

Berkley and Gibbons have some allies, although a majority of House members are expected to support the bill. Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., said the bill is unfairly "sticking it to Nevada."

Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., who supports a separate bill that would ship waste to Nevada even earlier -- 2003 -- voted against today's bill calling it a waste of time.

"It does precisely nothing," said Dingell, the ranking member on the Commerce Committee, where Yucca bills originate. "It is a sham and a fraud."

Environmental activists have said they were surprised the House was bothering with the bill given the veto threat.

"Why do this? Why move this reckless piece of legislation that we believe greatly jeopardizes public health and safety?" asked Anna Aurilio of U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

"It's an election year," said Wenonah Hauter of Washington-based Public Citizen. "They've got to raise money and show progress (on bills.)"

Today's action followed a flurry of letters splattered around Capitol Hill this week as players in the waste debate outlined their stances.

Gibbons and Berkley penned a "Dear Colleague" letter appealing to House members on the transportation issue, imploring, "Could your district, state or government afford a nuclear accident?" and "Are you willing to play radioactive roulette?"