Senator: Yucca bills unlikely this year

Benjamin Grove

Thursday, June 7, 2001 | 11:12 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Any Yucca Mountain-related legislation is not likely to surface in the Senate this year, Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., now the leading senator on energy issues, said Wednesday.

Bingaman on Wednesday became chairman of the Senate Energy Committee as the Senate underwent a historic mid-session shift from Republican to Democratic control. That committee will wrestle this year with energy policies.

But the panel probably will not consider nuclear waste legislation.

"We're on track," Bingaman told reporters of the proposed nuclear waste repository 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. "There's nothing Congress is required to do as far as I'm concerned."

Bingaman replaced former chairman Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, a vocal supporter of the Yucca project.

Environmental groups say Bingaman, like Murkowski, also supports the Yucca project, but he is more sympathetic to Nevada objections.

"Sen. Bingaman is more concerned about the weakening of the process of determining whether Yucca Mountain is approved or not approved," said Anna Aurilio, a scientist with U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

Bingaman spokeswoman Jude McCartin said, "If the Department of Energy comes back next year ... and agrees that Yucca Mountain is the right place to pursue as a repository, and all the T's are crossed and the I's dotted, certainly Sen. Bingaman is not going to stand in the way of opening Yucca."

Congress in 1987 designated Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, the only site to study and consider as the nation's nuclear waste burial ground.

The Environmental Protection Agency this week issued health and safety standards for the proposed repository. The next important step in the project timeline will be the DOE issuing its site recommendation on Yucca to the president. Nevada can formally file an objection, which Congress can override.

Meanwhile, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission must approve a DOE license to store waste at the desert site.

"The Congress has already dealt with this issue to the extent that it needs handling," McCartin said.

Last year, Murkowski crafted a bill that shortened the timeline for waste shipments to Nevada by three years, and he attempted to draft a compromise on radiation release limits at the Yucca site. President Clinton vetoed the bill.

But Bingaman has no plans to bring up a similar bill, McCartin said.

Despite his general support for Yucca, Bingaman has voted with Nevada senators on technical Yucca-related legislation before, including last year, said Nathan Naylor, spokesman for Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev.

"There's no reason to think that he wouldn't in the future," Naylor said.

Murkowski has butted heads with Nevada senators over the radiation standard and the Yucca project in general.

"The strength of the anti-nuclear lobby and those on the Democratic side, along with the folks in the state of Nevada, are clearly going to do everything they can to stop this," Murkowski told reporters this week.

Still, Murkowski said he was optimistic nuclear energy industry officials could still move forward with plans to eventually build new plants in America, despite opposition from some Democrats and several sizeable hurdles, including where to store waste. Dow Jones News Service

contributed to this article.