Porter launches formal bid to unseat Berkley

Tuesday, May 16, 2000 | 9:36 a.m.

State Sen. Jon Porter formally filed for Nevada's 1st District Congressional race Monday and promptly targeted incumbent Democrat Shelley Berkley on the hot-button nuclear waste issue.

Porter noted a 1999 vote by Berkley on a House spending bill that included $352.5 million for construction of a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Porter called the vote a "dereliction of duty."

Although the bill contained $20 million for flood-control projects in the Las Vegas Valley, Porter called Berkley's vote unacceptable, saying it amounted to trading away her vote on the state's most important issue.

Democrats Richard Bryan and Harry Reid supported an identical bill in the U.S. Senate.

Berkley defended the vote, saying it was critical to the Las Vegas area.

"This particular piece of legislation contained millions of dollars for flood control for Southern Nevada," she said. "If Mr. Porter had lived in the district during the devastating floods last July and seen the millions of dollars of devastation, the loss of life ... he would've been ashamed to have attacked me on this issue."