Reid pushes training program at Test Site

Benjamin Grove and Mary Manning

Friday, Oct. 5, 2001 | 9:51 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., this week hustled the plan to establish a permanent national counterterrorism training center at the nuclear bomb-scarred Nevada Test Site.

Nevada lawmakers have advocated the proposal for years, but it has received renewed attention since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Reid pitched the plan in person to Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham after an unrelated briefing for senators in the Capitol on Wednesday, Reid spokesman Nathan Naylor said. He lobbied other senators, including Intelligence Committee chairman Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla.

Reid, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, also sent a letter last weekend to President Bush, urging him to consider the proposal. Bush has not responded, but Reid's staff has talked the plan over with administration aides, Naylor said.

No specific blueprints, budgets or job studies or timelines have been drafted, Naylor said.

The Test Site is already used several times a year for limited "weapons of mass destruction" training for emergency responders nationwide.

"In this time of national crisis, a training facility expanding on these programs could be immediately established at the Nevada Test Site," Reid said in a written statement.

The Test Site is larger than Rhode Island and uniquely remote, its border roughly 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Underground tunnels there served as laboratories for some of the 1,000 nuclear weapons tests at the site conducted between 1951 and 1992.

The Test Site has been redefining itself since its workforce decreased after tests were banned in 1992. It has been the focus of proposals for windmill farms and spacecraft launch pads.

Reid envisions diverse exercises, from special operations forces and military officers training to hunt terrorists to emergency workers training for a biological weapons attack.

Officials with the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration, which manages the site, support the plan. They are aware of Reid's latest proposal, but a spokesman had no comment Thursday.

Officials in other states also are angling for a national academy. A plan to create a $52 million Center for Anti-Terrorism and Security Training school at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland was proposed by the State Department last month.