Editorial: Fairness wins in a squeaker

Wednesday, May 3, 2000 | 9:47 a.m.

Enough senators showed they had a backbone Tuesday when they sustained President Clinton's veto of legislation that would have sent 77,000 tons of high-level nuclear waste to Nevada starting in 2007. Senate Assistant Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., was confident early on that he had persuaded enough senators to sustain the veto, but the vote shows how precarious Nevada's situation is. Sen. John Edwards, D-N.C., who originally sided with Nevada, instead voted to override the veto Tuesday. This meant that just 34 senators -- the bare minimum -- voted to sustain the veto.

Meanwhile, the demagoguery used by repository supporters during the Senate debate illustrates just what is so wrong with this issue. "The president's veto wasn't based on good science, it was based on crass politics," Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, said. Murkowski, who carries the water for the nuclear power lobby in the Senate, claimed that Clinton's decision was intended to aid the presidential candidacy of Vice President Al Gore.

Nuclear waste storage is the most critical issue to Nevadans, but no observer of national politics could argue with a straight face that Nevada is the crown jewel in the presidential sweepstakes. It takes 270 electoral votes to win the White House and Nevada, because of its small population, only has four electoral votes.

If Clinton really wanted to do a favor for Gore, he would have signed the legislation into law. Don't forget that there are nuclear power reactors in 31 states, many of which are rich in electoral delegates. For instance, Illinois, one of the key battleground states in this presidential election, has 22 electoral votes -- more than five times what Nevada has.

Besides, those playing politics with this issue have been the nuclear power industry's friends in Congress, a development that lately has become partisan, as Republicans lead the way (of the 34 senators who supported Clinton's veto, 32 were Democrats). The GOP congressional leadership is dead set on burying high-level nuclear waste in Nevada, no matter how unsafe it is. These members of Congress, for instance, ignore that Yucca Mountain sits in one of the most active earthquake zones in the nation.

To get an idea of how low these members of Congress will stoop, their legislation sought to tamper with the independence of the Environmental Protection Agency, which would develop radiation standards for a repository at Yucca Mountain. The nuclear power lobby worries that if the EPA sets tough standards, this could make it too costly and doom the repository's chances of being built in Nevada.

So the legislation would have barred the EPA from issuing these radiation standards until June 2001 -- after Clinton leaves the White House. The nuclear power industry wants this change because it believes it could get a better deal if George W. Bush, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, is elected in November. If this happens, an EPA administrator in a Bush administration might put pressure on agency scientists to let politics, not facts, decide health and safety standards.

While the veto was sustained, after the vote Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., changed his vote from override to sustain. This parliamentary maneuver means that Lott can call for a vote again -- a disturbing prospect. Enough senators Tuesday had the courage to say no to the influential nuclear power industry, but the GOP leadership won more time to twist arms. For the sake of fairness, it is hoped that the two Republican senators who defied their party leadership and sustained Clinton's veto -- Sens. Ben Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island -- maintain their resolve to do what's right.