Columnist Benjamin Grove: House unlikely to back Nevada on Yucca vote

Benjamin Grove

Friday, April 19, 2002 | 4:58 a.m.

THE FIRST congressional hearing on Gov. Kenny Guinn's veto of Yucca Mountain was laced with omens of the House vote to come.

House energy subcommittee chairman, Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, on Thursday had impaneled an impressive group of witnesses to testify both for and against Yucca Mountain.

At the very moment Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., began to urge the subcommittee to reject the Yucca project, the jarring buzzers that call lawmakers to the House floor for votes shook the hearing room. It was as if Congress had sounded the final game-ending buzzer on Nevada's attempt to block Yucca in Congress, even before Ensign could get a word on the record.

Ensign, who once served in the House, ignored the first series of buzzers and forged ahead with his comments. But minutes later a second series zapped his train of thought mid-sentence.

"If dry cast storage on-site is good for 100 years, at least 100 years -- are you guys planning these bells purposely?" Ensign asked, to some laughter in the hearing room.

The joke was clear: Ask not for whom the House bell tolls. It's Nevada.

Of course, that comes as no surprise. Barton's subcommittee has long been widely expected to support the Yucca project, and panel lawmakers will finally get their chance Tuesday.

From there the full committee will likely pass it as early as Thursday. The full House could pass it by the end of the month, quickly tossing the issue to the Senate, where the vote could be closer.

But Nevada never really stood a chance in the House.

As the hearing dragged on Thursday, it became clear some subcommittee members, who fully intend to vote in favor of Yucca Mountain, have not even familiarized themselves with basic details about the storied, high-stakes issue.

Rep. Edward Whitfield, R-Ky., asked if other nations had national waste repositories, even though it has been widely reported that Yucca Mountain is the first of its kind in the world.

Rep. Tom Sawyer, D-Ohio, was confused about how many nuclear plants America has. (The nation has 103 operating nuclear reactors, including two in Sawyer's state, and a number of government waste sites that would ship waste to Yucca Mountain.)

Even Barton, who has long been a student of waste issues, bobbled a few facts. He referred to a now widely publicized test in which a TOW missile was fired at a nuclear waste transportation container, and said the cask released no radiation. (True enough. But the missile wasn't fired. The charge was mounted on the cask and detonated, putting a small hole in it. And the test container released no radiation because it was empty. If it had contained waste, it likely would have released deadly material. Even industry experts say missiles can breach their strongest casks.)

It got comical at times: When Rep. John Dingell, the respected 49-year House veteran, questioned Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, Dingell referred to the project several times as "Yoo-ca" Mountain.

And later, when it became clear a number of panel members couldn't even pronounce Nevada, Barton finally asked Reps. Shelley Berkley and Jim Gibbons to settle it once and for all: Ne-vaa-da or Ne-vah-da? Ne-vaa-da, Berkley and Gibbons said.

So why do lawmakers -- mostly lawyers, few scientists -- have any say about Yucca Mountain at all? Federal law originally drafted by lawmakers in 1982 gave the nation's representative lawmakers the responsibility to accept or reject Nevada's official veto of the project.

Now many lawmakers like Dingell are ready to vote based on the endorsement of Department of Energy scientists, despite doubts raised about Yucca's suitability by the General Accounting Office and the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board. The GAO is Congress' own investigative arm and the board was created by Congress in 1987 to watchdog the DOE's scientific studies.

Subcommittee lawmakers seem eager to punt the project to experts at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which would license the site if the NRC deems it safe.

The nuclear industry couldn't agree more. "The issue here is not whether Congress has a role to play in determining whether the site is scientifically suitable," Joe Colvin, CEO and president of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's top lobby group, told the subcommittee. "It is up to Congress to move us into the licensing phase."

The House, at least, was preparing to do just that on Thursday, when even the weather seemed to portend the worst for Nevada lawmakers. Shortly after the subcommittee hearing ended, a brief thunderstorm rolled over the nation's capital.

Nevada officials hope things will be sunnier in the Senate.