Senate fails to override nuclear waste veto

H. Josef Hebert

Tuesday, May 2, 2000 | 5:33 a.m.

WASHINGTON - The Senate, in yet another struggle over nuclear waste, failed Tuesday to override President Clinton's veto of legislation that would have sent thousands of tons of highly radioactive garbage to Nevada.

The 64-35 vote fell three senators short of the two-thirds vote needed to pass the measure over the president's objection.

The legislation, which was vetoed by Clinton on March 25, would require that more than 40,000 tons of used reactor fuel, now kept at 72 nuclear power plants in 31 states, be shipped to the Nevada desert.

The site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas under Yucca Mountain is the location of a proposed permanent tomb for the nation's nuclear waste.

The shipments, which were to begin in 2007, would have been contingent on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission issuing a license for the permanent facility, which is undergoing scientific review. Ultimately, more than 77,000 metric tons of highly radioactive material would be stored there.

Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., who in the last seconds changed his vote to "no" for procedural reasons, said he might bring up the measure again. But Nevada's two senators said if he does they're confident they will again prevail.

"We have 34 votes, we will always have 34 votes," vowed Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., referring to the minimum needed to sustain a presidential veto.

Reid and Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., criticized the nuclear power industry and argued that the spent reactor fuel is more safely stored where it currently is at the reactor sites until improved technology is found for its disposal.

"Instead of letting science dictate what should be done, they want to let politics decide, even if that means endangering the lives of millions of Americans who would be threatened by one major train wreck or truck accident involving high-level nuclear waste," Reid said.

The nuclear industry has argued the government promised to assume responsibility for spent nuclear fuel and that many reactor site will run out of storage space.

"We simply cannot allow (the nuclear industry) to strangle on its own waste without a viable alternative," said Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, chief sponsor of the bill.

The Senate had passed the bill 64-34 last year and the House had cleared the measure by a 252-167 margin, both short of what was needed to avoid a veto. President Clinton issued the veto, in part, because he said it would prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from developing radiation standards for a permanent Yucca Mountain waste site before June 2001.

Bryan said the delay was put into the bill by Republicans in hopes that George W. Bush by then would be in the White House and allow a less stringent radiation standard than the one being considered by the EPA.

"If the proponents of storing nuclear waste in Nevada were successful in this latest attempt to gut the radiation standards for Yucca Mountain, the health and safety of hundreds of thousands of Nevadans would have been placed in jeopardy," Bryan said.

Murkowksi urged his fellow senators "to put this issue behind us for once and for all" and accused the White House of refusing to address the issue of nuclear waste disposal.

Without a central storage facility, said Murkowski, the country would have "80 mini-Yucca mountains" that aren't designed for long-term storage of wastes that will remain highly radioactive for thousands of years.

But Reid and Bryan maintained that the waste could be kept in dry casks at reactor sites for as long as 100 years, and by then other approaches to waste disposal could be developed.

Most people in Nevada are vehemently opposed to the proposed shipment of the waste, which has become a hot political issue with Democrats accusing Republicans of forcing the legislation.

Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., who consistently has opposed the nuclear waste bill, praised Reid and Gibbons and urged "misguided nuke dump proponents" to drop their efforts in the 106th Congress.

However, Tuesday's Senate vote was closer than the actual numbers suggested, prompting supporters of the measure to hold out hope for another try later this year.

Lott, who cast a "no" vote so he could revive the measure, favors the legislation as does Sen. William Roth, R-Del., who was absent. Murkowski noted that with those two votes, a veto override was but one vote short.

Republican Sens. Ben Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island opposed the bill - as they had in the original vote. But the Nevadans lost a Democrat, Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, who had opposed the waste bill in the original vote, but joined in voting for a veto override Tuesday.

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Senate Bill 1287