Nevada lacks clout to stop dump

Benjamin Grove

Monday, Jan. 14, 2002 | 9:41 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- If President Bush endorses the plan to bury nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain and Gov. Kenny Guinn files an official objection as expected, both the House and Senate likely would have the votes to override the Nevada objection.

Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., said last week they do not have enough allies in the Senate to stop an override.

And the Republican-controlled 435-member House will "overwhelmingly" override it, said Samantha Jordan, spokeswoman for Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, a leading Yucca supporter in the House.

Barton, chairman of a key House Energy subcommittee, has consistently prodded the Department of Energy to complete the Yucca project.

"I will continue to work with the administration on this matter and urge President Bush to formally recommend Yucca Mountain as the location for the federal government's disposal facility as soon as possible," Barton said in a statement after Abraham's decision last week.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham last week signaled that in 30 days he will make a recommendation to President Bush that Yucca Mountain is a safe and suitable place to bury 77,000 tons of nuclear waste from around the country.

Bush likely will give the project the green light, most observers agree.

At that point, Gov. Kenny Guinn can veto Bush's action, batting the issue back to Congress. Both the House and Senate would have 90 days to override the formal objection with a simple majority.

Powerful pro-Yucca lawmakers also are already looking forward to the vote, including pro-Yucca House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., who released a statement blaming "left-wing political grandstanding" for delaying the Yucca project thus far.

Waste is piling up in Illinois, one of the top nuclear-power producing states in the country. Lawmakers from other states with nuclear plants joined in calling for congressional action on Yucca this year.

Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., said, "This is a major step toward finally moving hazardous nuclear waste off the shores of Lake Michigan once and for all. And it's about time," Upton said. "At the end of the day it's nice to have an administration that realizes the urgency and importance of this issue and is willing to act."

For an idea about how a congressional vote might go, insiders point to a February 2000 Senate vote on a bill that would have sped up the Yucca project timeline.

Reid and former Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., were able to muster 32 other senators to vote against it. Although the bill had passed, Reid and Bryan called the vote a victory because it was exactly the number they needed at the time -- more than one-third -- to sustain a veto by President Clinton.

This time around, Reid and Ensign would need to round up support from 49 senators for a simple majority, which will not be easy. Lawmakers, with a few exceptions, often vote on the issue based on whether nuclear waste is piling up in their states -- not based on what their party leaders like Majority Whip Reid -- say.

It is not clear how many allies Reid and Ensign, will be able to corral for support.

The Senate's leading Yucca advocates will be lobbying their colleagues, too, aides said.

"Secretary Abraham came to this decision using the sound and objective science that must guide all policy makers through each step of this project, including the coming congressional debate," Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, said last week.

Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, another leading Yucca supporter, said, "This is another major step in the critical and necessary move to get waste out of Idaho and into a permanent waste facility."

Pro-Yucca lobbyists also will be out in full force.

Officials at the Nuclear Energy Institute, the leading pro-Yucca lobby firm in Washington, rejoiced at Abraham's announcement. NEI president and CEO Joe Colvin called it the "right scientific thing to do."

Another lobbyist, Geraldine Ferraro, plans to look past Bush and focus her efforts on Congress. The consultant and former vice presidential candidate in November signed on to help lead an alliance of energy companies in a new pro-Yucca lobbying campaign under the umbrella of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Ferraro has no intention of lobbying White House officials. "I don't know if that will be necessary," Ferraro told the Sun.

But Ferraro has already spoken with a few senators, she said.

"A lot of (lawmakers) are concerned about these waste sites in their state," Ferraro said.

If in fact the Yucca issue comes to a vote in Congress, there are a few wild cards to consider this time around. Nevada lawmakers say they have added ammunition in a final General Accounting Office report released in December that faults the Yucca project and recommends delaying indefinitely a decision about its suitability. The GAO is the auditing arm of Congress.

Also, this year Nevada has a senator from each party -- Ensign will be on the spot to put his influence to the test. Also, the Senate has 10 other new members to consider since the last Yucca vote in 2000.

And it is unknown how the post-Sept. 11 environment might affect the vote. Pro-Yucca forces argue that storing the nation's nuclear waste in one secure desert location is safer than storing it on-site at nuclear plants nationwide. But Yucca opponents say shipping waste on trucks and trains for decades through 41 states and major cities provides terrorists with thousands of rolling targets.