Nevada lawmakers declare victory in nuke waste vote

H. Joseph Hebert

Wednesday, March 22, 2000 | 3:34 a.m.

WASHINGTON - Although President Clinton already promised a veto, the House passed legislation Wednesday that could open the way for thousands of tons of nuclear waste to be shipped to Nevada as early as 2007.

Nevada lawmakers said the vote margin - not enough to override a veto - amounts to a victory in their determined effort to keep the high-level radioactive waste out of the state.

"Today, the nuke dump proponents wasted the House's valuable time and taxpayer dollars by taking up a bill that already faces a veto threat by the president," Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said.

The measure, approved last month by the Senate, now goes to the White House. The president opposes it because it raises questions about the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to establish radiation standards for a permanent waste disposal facility.

The House passed the bill 253-167 - well short of the 290 votes needed to override a veto. The earlier Senate vote also fee short of the two-thirds necessary to overcome a veto.

"This was just an exercise in futility," Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said. Like other Nevada lawmakers, she strongly has opposed the legislation, arguing the proposed permanent waste burial site under Yucca Mountain 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas is unsafe.

"For 13 years, Congress has been unable to send nuclear waste to Nevada due to the united efforts of our congressional delegation," Gibbons said.

"It is time that the nuclear waste dump proponents realize Nevadans are never going to back down in our fierce opposition to this bill," he said.

Supporters of the legislation argued that the government has a legal obligation to take more than 40,000 tons of highly radioactive used reactor fuel now kept at commercial reactors in 31 states.

"The government broke its promise to begin storing nuclear waste. The (Clinton) administration still refused to deal in good faith ... to fix the problem," said Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich..

While Nevada's lawmakers sought to keep waste out of their state, other opponents of the bill said it does not go far enough to ensure a central storage facility is built. Some House members said they were concerned about thousands of waste shipments, many by truck, crisscrossing the country.

This bill "does more harm than good, it's a sham. It's nothing more than bait and switch," complained Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., noting that an earlier demand that an interim waste site be built in Nevada had been abandoned.

In an attempt to get broader support, the Senate also scuttled a requirements for the government to take formal title of the waste - even it still remains at reactor sites.

For six years, Congress has struggled over the buildup of used reactor fuel - waste that will remain highly radioactive for 10,000 years - at 71 reactor sites around the country. Some utilities contend they are running out of storage room while electricity users have contributed $13 billion into a federal waste fund.

The bill no longer would create a temporary storage site in Nevada. But it would open the way for waste shipments to begin once the Nuclear Regulatory Commission issues a license for the Yucca Mountain permanent waste site in the Nevada desert.

The proposed Yucca Mountain facility 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas remains under scientific review, but is scheduled to be opened in 2010 if found technically suitable. The NRC is expected to decide whether to give it a license in 2006.

"In effect they're creating an interim dump," Berkley said, by beginning shipments before Yucca Mountain ever is built.

Critics as well as the White House also have argued that the legislation would weaken the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to set radiation standards for the future permanent repository.

Under the legislation, the EPA would have to consult with the NRC and the National Academy of Sciences if it wanted to issue the standards before June 1, 2001. The NRC has suggested less stringent standards than the EPA is considering for the Yucca Mountain site.