Legislators spreading word on Yucca

Wednesday, March 7, 2001 | 11:18 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins, D-Henderson, said today that efforts by Nevada lawmakers to convince their counterparts in other states of the dangers of transportation of nuclear waste is "starting to pick up steam."

"Some of the folks in other states didn't understand the impact to their states," Perkins said.

Nevada legislators have been talking with lawmakers in other states during national conferences in an effort to head off the decision by Congress to choose Yucca Mountain as a site for the burial of high level radioactive materials. The Energy Department is expected to make a recommendation later this year to President Bush.

"Most of our delegation is networking this way .... raising their (other state lawmakers') awareness," he said.

Getting legislators in other states to talk to their congressional delegation will be helpful, Perkins said.

This effort has been going on for a few years, but it is starting to intensify as the decision-making time nears. The campaign effort dovetails with the program proposed by Gov. Kenny Guinn for a $5 million appropriation, part of it for a media campaign to alert people in other states that the dangerous waste is going to be trucked through their urban areas.

"Some of these states with nuclear waste want to get rid of it," Perkins said. "And they are in a quandary."

"The Utah folks have been talking with us all along," he said. Utah Gov. Michael Leavitt has been talking with Guinn to launch a joint program, Perkins said.

Missouri is another state where contacts have been made. He said shipments of nuclear waste would be routed through St. Louis.

These legislators in other states, the speaker said have not given much thought to the issue before now.

Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, D-Las Vegas, introduces a resolution today that says Nevada officially disapproves of any move by Congress to send the waste to this state.

The resolution was scheduled to be introduced Tuesday, but the Senate did not have a floor session.

The resolution, signed by more than 90 percent of the lawmakers, urges President Bush to veto any legislation to locate a temporary or interim storage facility for spent nuclear fuel in Nevada and for the Bush administration abandon consideration of Yucca Mountain as a permanent site.

The resolution said the federal government is prohibited from putting the repository without prior expressed consent of the Legislature. And the resolution says it is the "official disapproval" of any action by Congress.