Reid says energy package ‘has no hope of passing’

Benjamin Grove and Mary Manning

Wednesday, May 17, 2000 | 11:18 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, on Tuesday unveiled an ambitious bill aimed at redesigning the nation's energy policy, and one key tenet would increase production of nuclear power in America.

"The goal of this bill is simple -- decrease America's dependence on foreign oil sources to 50 percent by the year 2010," Murkowski said in a written statement.

The bill was introduced late Tuesday, leaving Nevada's senators to assess what it means to the state. The nation's nuclear power plants, the Department of Energy and Congress are eyeing Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, as the permanent burial ground for the nation's nuclear waste.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., the Senate's Assistant Democratic leader, said the legislation was "a joke."

"The whole bill to me is senseless," Reid said. "You introduce bills to get them passed. This has no hope of passing."

The bill is the result of work by a 10-member task force, led by Murkowski, who has pushed to establish Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste storage site. Murkowski and fellow Republicans have frequently criticized President Clinton for not having a comprehensive energy plan.

"Congress cannot be blamed for the (Clinton) administration's energy policy over the last seven years," Murkowski said.

Murkowski's 56-page National Energy Security Act of 2000 aims to:

The Alaska provisions prompted Reid to call the bill "a wish list for Alaska."

"It's not going to happen," Reid said.

Environmental groups also called the bill "dead on arrival," saying it ignores environmentally sound energy practices and assumes Yucca will be approved as a waste site.

"This is premature and inappropriate," Kalynda Tilges, the Las Vegas coordinator for Citizen Alert, said. The bill also expands the 77,000-ton waste limit at Yucca, she said.

"Public Citizen is adamantly opposed to this bill," said Amy Shollenberger, spokeswoman for the Washington, D.C. watchdog group. She added that the bill seems to make formal Nuclear Regulatory Commission hearings informal, which would cut the public out of the process.

The legislation directs the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to give Congress a report on how nuclear power plants could produce more electricity. The bill also directs the commission to offer suggestions on how the commission could more efficiently issue new licenses to existing plants.

Nuclear utilities produce about 20 percent of the nation's energy. Nuclear advocates stress nuclear power generation produces no green house gases.

But more nuclear power would mean more nuclear waste, critics say.

"I don't think the public is going to buy into that," Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., said. "There have been no nuclear reactors placed in the United States in the last 25 years."

Nevada's delegation has fought proposals to bury nuclear waste at Yucca, but the federal plan to ship waste there beginning in 2010 is still under way. Critics of the plan stress that scientists have not determined whether the site is a suitable place to bury the highly radioactive material.

Murkowski's bill also:

* Says that a second national repository for nuclear waste may be needed.

* Directs Congress to evaluate whether waste stored at Yucca Mountain eventually could be recycled.

* Creates an Office of Spent Nuclear Fuel Research. The office director would use laboratories, universities and the nuclear industry to "investigate technologies for treatment, recycling and disposal" of nuclear waste.

The United States currently does not recycle, or "reprocess," used nuclear fuel to be used again, as some other countries do. Reprocessing fuel is considered a security risk because it separates out plutonium, which could fall into the wrong hands and be used to make nuclear weapons.

"(Murkowski) is trying to advance the agenda of Yucca Mountain as the place for all the nation's high level waste by making it more attractive as a potential future source of nuclear power," Sierra Club's Tilges said.

Murkowski's bill has the support of Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., who controls much of the action in the Senate. Lott invoked a seldom-used rule that allows him to introduce the bill on the Senate floor and bypass committee hearings where most bills start -- and many bills get stalled.