Berkley: Possible threats at Yucca a top priority

Benjamin Grove

Friday, Oct. 5, 2001 | 9:37 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- The nation's new Office of Homeland Security should make one of its first jobs analyzing a terrorist threat at the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., said Thursday.

Berkley is drafting legislation that would require a study of terrorism threats by the office of the nation's first anti-terrorism czar, former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge. The office also should study possible threats to trucks and trains that would haul high-level radioactive material to Nevada if the Yucca project is approved, the congresswoman said.

Meanwhile Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., is leading the charge in Congress to quickly establish the Office of Homeland Security as Bush envisioned it. Gibbons and Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., on Thursday unveiled the Office of Homeland Security Act at a press conference.

Gibbons said Congress should give Ridge powerful budget authority and assure him a Cabinet-level position.

Berkley's bill directs the Department of Energy to prove to Congress that Yucca Mountain, along with the waste transportation routes, would not be easy prey for terrorists.

"We better figure out how to protect the nation's only nuclear waste repository," Berkley said. "How are we going to protect trucks and trains filled with nuclear waste that are hauling radioactive material to Yucca Mountain? I don't think we have a real plan that addresses that. I don't think anyone has ever considered it."

Berkley's bill would further slow the 14-year-old federal plan to bury the nation's nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain, a desert ridge 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

Under the Berkley bill, the DOE would not be able to recommend Yucca as a suitable waste site until Ridge's Office of Homeland Security completed a Yucca terrorism analysis and Congress was assured terrorist risks were mitigated.

The office is not yet even open and running; Ridge formally begins the job Monday. For now the DOE is preparing a site recommendation report for the president that could be released later this year.

Berkley said she plans to introduce her legislation next week. She hopes to roll it into a package of counterterrorism bills now being assembled in Congress.

Ridge will lead a council of agency and department leaders and supervise an estimated staff of 100. He has said he will streamline existing national security measures and develop longterm strategies.

Lawmakers have said the nation's first anti-terrorism czar needs Congress to guarantee him his own budget along with the power to direct or reject the way other agencies spend money to address terrorism.

Eighteen federal agencies have requested $11 billion for counterterrorism programs next year, according to the Congressional Research Service.

"Without this legislation, Gov. Ridge cannot do the job that the president has tasked him to do and that the American people need him to do," Gibbons said.

Gibbons is vice chairman of the House Intelligence Subcommittee on terrorism and homeland security, a panel created last month after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Without the legislation, a future president could abolish the position without consulting Congress.

Lawmakers said Congress needs to create a permanent anti-terrorism czar who will be at work when he is needed most -- years from now when the Sept. 11 attacks are no longer in the national spotlight.

In other related action, the House energy committee approved legislation this week that would give armed guards wider discretion to use guns at facilities licensed by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, including Yucca Mountain.

The legislation sets a uniform federal standard that allows guards to use weapons to prevent theft or damage to nuclear materials.

Some state laws currently restrict guards from using weapons unless their own lives are in danger. The legislation allows guards to make arrests without warrant in some cases.

The legislation also sets stricter punishments for sabotage at a nuclear facility: a $1 million fine and up to life in prison without possibility for parole.

Finally, the legislation requires that armed forces trained to repel a coordinated terrorist attack accompany nuclear waste shipments, including any future cross-country shipments to Yucca Mountain.

However, key lawmakers oppose the way that provision was written, and it may be stripped from the final version of the legislation, lawmaker aides said.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee approved the legislation Wednesday, and lawmakers plan to add it to the broader anti-terrorism legislation working its way through Congress.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.