Freshman senator now at center of Nevada’s lobbying campaign

Benjamin Grove

Thursday, April 11, 2002 | 11:08 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- As the behind-the-scenes lobbying on both sides of the Yucca Mountain issue intensifies on Capitol Hill, many eyes are on Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev.

Ensign is key, arguably the most important person at the moment, in Nevada's effort to stop plans to bury radioactive waste at Yucca, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

With Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev. and his close ally, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota, pledging to corral at least 30 fellow Democrats -- possibly as many as 35, sources say -- the pressure is on Nevada's first-term Republican senator to line up 15 to 20 senators on his side of the aisle.

So far, only one, Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, R-Colo., has reportedly said he would vote with Ensign.

Campbell is "leaning against" Yucca Mountain because of concerns over transportation and whether the project has been thoroughly studied, spokeswoman Camden Hubbard said today.

To that end, Ensign is in the middle of a quiet, door-to-door campaign in the Capitol, he said today, revealing one strategy in the state's anti-Yucca effort.

Ensign is sitting down with most of the 48 other Republican senators for half-hour meetings in which he is outlining reasons for opposing the nuclear repository.

Since he began the face-to-face meetings in early March, he has seen 15 senators, and planned to see four today. Of the 15, some have agreed to be "undecided," Ensign said, although none have agreed to vote against Yucca.

The meetings mostly are being in the other senators' offices, although a few have been on the Senate floor, aides said.

Ensign takes along just one staffer: legislative director Pam Thiessen. The other senators so far have included just a top aide or two, if any, Thiessen said.

The meetings are tailor-made for each lawmaker. Ensign and Thiessen bring a gift, an inch-thick "briefing book," written especially for each senator. For example, each book has statistics about the number of estimated truck and train shipments of waste that could one day travel through their state en route to Yucca Mountain.

Today an Ensign aide was toting a briefing book assembled for Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky. Data on one page indicated that 18,435 truck and 3,312 train shipments could rumble through Kentucky on their way to Yucca.

Ensign varies his pitch, too.

"You might emphasize the transportation issue in one office and you might talk about the billion-dollar boondoggle aspect of it in another, or maybe it's the stupidity of burying waste when we should be talking about the opportunity to recycle," Ensign said. "It depends on what their hot-button issues are."

Most senators have been willing to sit down with Ensign, although staffers for one tried to prevent a meeting, Thiessen said.

"I said to the staff, 'Look, the senators are going to talk,' " Thiessen said. " 'It's going to be in the cloakroom or on the floor or in your office. So you can either have your staff there or not. But it's going to happen.' "

Ensign knows it's a longshot to line up 15 or 20 Republicans. Some are under intense lobbying and constituent pressure to approve Yucca, especially from nuclear power companies in their states. Some have established a voting record in favor of the repository and are reluctant to switch. Party leaders, including Minority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi, are urging approval of the project.

In the meetings Ensign counters with familiar arguments, including that Yucca Mountain is a waste of money -- noting that it could cost as much as the nation's aircraft carrier fleet, Thiessen said.

He stresses transportation risks. And Ensign debunks what he calls "the big lie:" that nuclear waste will disappear from states where it is stored on-site at nuclear plants and defense sites.

Nevada officials note that waste will continue to pile up as long as plants operate, whether Yucca Mountain is approved or not, Thiessen said. Yucca Mountain will merely add one more nuclear waste site to America's landscape.

At the end of meetings with senators, the lawmakers have generally said, "'I'll have staff look into it and, 'You've made some good arguments,' " Thiessen said.

Not much of a commitment. But Reid and Ensign today insisted they were "making headway." Ensign is hopeful that for the moment he can at least persuade some of his colleagues to fall in the "undecided" category.

Among those is Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, R-Mo. Ensign, accompanied by Gov. Kenny Guinn, who was in Washington for a whirlwind media tour, met Tuesday with Bond in his office.

Bond has not taken a public stance on the issue. He may announce how he intends to vote as early as next week, spokesman Ernie Blazar said. Missouri has no commercial nuclear power plants and would be heavily traveled by waste shipments. But Bond has voted in favor of Yucca in past votes and there is no indication that will change.

"He's sort of coming down on the side of Yucca Mountain," Blazar said.

Part of the challenge Ensign faces is that deal-making is best done far from media attention and long before issues enter the public spotlight, University of Nevada, Las Vegas political science professor Ted Jelen said.

Senators don't want their constituents to think they changed their minds after lobbying from a Nevada lawmaker, he said. At this point, Ensign has little chance of recruiting Republican senators, Jelen said.

"He's got to buck a president of his own party who has over an 80 percent approval rating, on an issue that is fairly popular in (the senators') home states," Jelen said. "It's a tall order. I frankly think it's too late."

Ensign is trying to "unsell a sold item," University of Nevada, Reno political science professor Erik Herzik, said. Another problem is that Nevada officials are recommending alternatives to burial at Yucca that are not being well received.

Herzik has examined where Ensign might find a few Senate allies. Even Western, states-rights Republicans such as Sens. Orrin Hatch and Robert Bennett of Utah are not likely to vote with their neighbor, Herzik said.

"I don't know where (Ensign) can find the votes, and I don't think he'll find many," Herzik said.

Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said his former House ally can have "tremendous sway." But Gibbons, who is in the middle of his own mad scramble to line up Republicans, said they face a similarly daunting task.

"He's got smaller numbers to deal with, but the challenge is the same," Gibbons said.

Ensign needs no reminders of the intense pressure on him. He feels it everyday, from a wide variety of sources -- including the state's allies. As Ensign has implored Daschle to do everything he can in his position to block Yucca, Daschle has repeatedly put the spotlight back on him to round up Republicans.

Ensign, at a press conference this week, repeated lines he used in his campaign to stress Nevada's need for a GOP member in the Senate, where most Republicans line up with party leaders in favor of Yucca Mountain.

"Most of it is self-imposed pressure," Ensign said today. "I feel such a heavy responsibility, because I feel so passionately that we need to stop this project."

Ensign has the opportunity to prove his advantage, several Democratic sources said. With the Senate's 90-day clock running in the high-stakes game of vote gathering, the ball is in the court of the freshman senator.

It can be difficult for a new lawmaker, with less tenure and less power to make deals. But that can play to Ensign's advantage, too, Reid said.

"Members of the party want new members to do well," Reid said. "He has the power to be very persuasive."

It is hard to tell whether Republicans are putting more stock in Ensign's pitch, or the arguments made by the influential nuclear industry lobby, Reid said.

"We're going to see, aren't we?" Reid said. "That's why we are working so hard."

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