Cheney meets with Nevada senators over Yucca dump

Benjamin Grove

Tuesday, May 8, 2001 | 12:27 p.m.

WASHINGTON -- Vice President Dick Cheney met with Sens. John Ensign, R-Nev., and Harry Reid, D-Nev., today over nuclear waste and the future of nuclear power in the United States.

The three met in Cheney's office in the Capitol for a rare private discussion about nuclear waste and the future of nuclear power in the United States. Cheney, who has the power to break tied votes in the evenly split Senate, agreed to meet with Nevada's senators for 15 minutes to discuss the state's high-priority issue.

It was the first formal meeting between Nevada's senators and a high-level Bush administration official on the topic. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham has vowed to spur the project, calling for budget increases this year. Nevada lawmakers strongly oppose the project.

The senators emerged from the meeting this morning without comment. Their aides said the senators wanted to keep the details of the meeting private.

"Sen. Reid was glad that they had a good meeting and wants to keep the dialogue going," Nathan Naylor, his spokesman, said.

At the direction of President Bush, Cheney is heading a task force to craft a much-anticipated national energy strategy. Cheney plans to release the report this month, possibly as early as this week. The vice president has said the strategy will include a mix of new legislation, presidential orders and private initiatives.

The strategy reportedly calls for an increase in nuclear power, which Cheney has publicly touted in recent weeks. He told a media gathering last month that it is "a safe, clean, very plentiful energy source."

More nuclear power means more nuclear waste. That affects Nevada, the only state being studied for a high-level nuclear waste dump. Congress in 1987 designated Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, to be studied as the waste dump site.

Eventually, the site could be home to 77,000 tons of waste, mostly spent uranium fuel pellets from the nation's 103 commercial power reactors, where the waste is now stored.

Nevada lawmakers have long battled the plan, which has not been approved by the president, Congress or the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The NRC must license the waste repository.

If approved, Yucca Mountain would not open until 2010 at the earliest.

"No longer should we discuss the virtues of nuclear power without addressing the vices of nuclear pollution," Reid said in a written statement earlier today at a hearing on congressional oversight of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Cheney visited Las Vegas and Reno during campaign stops in October. During the Reno stop he said the Environmental Protection Agency should hold onto its duty of setting safe levels of radiation release at Yucca.

The EPA and the NRC disagree about how much radiation from Yucca could safely be released into the air and ground water. The EPA recommends a stricter, lower level.

Nevada lawmakers side with the EPA; Yucca backers support the NRC standard.

Cheney at his Las Vegas visit did not mention nuclear waste during public appearances. When questioned by reporters Cheney said, "He (Bush) will not approve temporary or permanent storage of nuclear waste until he is satisfied that safety standards are met."

He drew cheers from his Republican audience when he said, "They (the Clinton administration) have no coherent energy policy."