Yucca tops lawmakers’ agenda

Benjamin Grove

Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2002 | 9:47 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Perhaps no single issue has dominated the attention of Nevada lawmakers in Congress in the past 20 years more than Yucca Mountain.

This year promises no different.

Nevada's four-member delegation this week joins lawmakers from around the nation returning to Capitol Hill to launch this year's session.

In addition to election-year politicking, lawmakers pledge to focus on a wide range of issues, from stimulating the economy and investigating Enron to tracking the war on terrorism and reworking President Bush's budget.

For the Nevada members, battling the Yucca Mountain plan will again dominate their schedules. This year the federal proposal to bury 77,000 tons of the nation's high-level radioactive material at Yucca Mountain has new momentum.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham next month is expected to recommend Yucca Mountain as a suitable site to bury the nation's nuclear waste to President Bush. If Bush gives the project a green light, as expected, Gov. Kenny Guinn will file an official objection. Congress then would vote on whether to overrule the objection.

Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., will "be with him" in a vote to uphold Nevada's objection. But Daschle will have no procedural power to block a vote because of the way federal nuclear waste laws are written, Reid said.

The Nevadans face an uphill battle -- both the House and Senate are likely to override any Nevada objection to the Yucca plan in a vote that could come as early as midyear, according to some observers.

Nevada lawmakers plan to meet again shortly after they return this week to discuss anti-Yucca strategy. For now they are leaning on Bush in a long-shot effort to convince the president to reject Abraham's recommendation.

"The Yucca Mountain Plan is a Band-Aid that does nothing to fix our nuclear waste problems, while at the same time endangering the well being of the people of Nevada, and of the 43 states that will be subject to nuclear waste transports," Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., wrote to Bush in a letter last week.

Nevada lawmakers also promise a "frontal assault" in Congress in an effort to convince their colleagues that not enough scientific data has been collected yet to proceed with the Yucca Mountain plan. They will tote around a recent General Accounting Office report that faulted the Yucca project and recommended delaying it.

Their strongest argument: Transporting waste across the nation is dangerous in terms of accidents and terrorist threats, Reid said.

"My message (to lawmakers) will be that this is not just a Nevada problem," Reid said.

Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., said he was already talking to fellow House Republicans such as Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, whom he spoke to Monday. Gibbons said the risks of terrorist attacks on waste transports already were "raising eyebrows" among lawmakers.

College betting ban

Nevada lawmakers this year also will keep an eye on several lawmakers bent on making it illegal to bet on college athletics in Nevada sports books.

Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Sam Brownback, R-Kan., along with Rep. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., and Rep. Tim Roemer, D-Ind., are still leading a charge backed by the National Collegiate Athletic Association. They intend to push for a vote on the bill, which would hurt Nevada gaming operations.

Nevada is the only state that offers legal betting on college sports, and that creates a framework for a wide network of illegal betting nationwide, the lawmakers argue. They aim to close what they consider a "Las Vegas loophole."

Nevada lawmakers say they are winning over more and more lawmakers by arguing that the bill will not stem the tide of illegal gambling, including Internet sports betting. Their goal is to line up enough allies, at least in the House, to defeat the measure.

Key lawmakers, including House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., Majority Leader Richard Armey, R-Texas, and Judiciary Committee chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., are expected to side with Nevada lawmakers, Gibbons said.

The Nevadans are luring some lawmakers away from the betting ban bill with alternative legislation they introduced that increases penalties for illegal betting and launches a study of illegal gambling by minors.

While united on several fronts, Nevada lawmakers -- two Democrats, two Republicans -- differ on a number of issues.

Economic stimulus

Lawmakers upon returning to Washington are likely to discuss the economic stimulus package they abandoned last month. Democrats favor a focus on extending health care and unemployment benefits to laid-off workers; Republicans generally favor new tax cuts.

"I am hopeful that there is going to be a meaningful compromise," Berkley said. "I do not see how giving IBM, Ford Co., Kmart -- giving millions and in some cases billions at this moment is going to stimulate the economy."

Gibbons said the stimulus package likely will include both tax cuts and health care and unemployment benefits, as well as a few provisions that could help the Las Vegas economy, including a 100 percent tax deduction for business meals.

Reid said Congress is more likely to approve extended unemployment benefits than health care extensions.

He said lawmakers should at least consider paring back tax cuts Congress approved last year, which most Republicans strongly oppose.

"We have to put everything out on the table," Reid said.

Other issues

Reid, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, has a full plate of legislation he intends to push this year. Among them are issues he introduced in past years.

Reid wants legislation that would allow disabled war veterans to collect both disability and veterans pay at the same time.

Reid also has been a vocal advocate for a bill that would ban health-care plans from denying mental health care coverage in certain cases.

On another issue, Reid will butt heads with nuclear industry officials who say their paramilitary force security officers adequately guard the nation's 103 nuclear reactors.

Reid along with Sens. Jim Jeffords, I-Vt., Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., disagree. They want to put the guards under federal control. Plant operators say that would put a bureaucracy, not plant management, in charge of security during a crisis.

Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., also has a busy year planned, his second in the Senate. Ensign has said he intends to be an active part of efforts in the Senate to make prescription drugs more affordable.

Ensign is also on the Senate Commerce Committee, which is investigating beleaguered and bankrupt Enron Corp. Ensign accepted $7,500 from the energy firm in campaign donations. Ensign also took $25,000 from Andersen, Enron's accounting firm, which is also likely to be under congressional scrutiny, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

The war on terrorism also will dominate agendas in Congress. Gibbons, who is also a member of the House Armed Services Committee, said U.S. soldiers are likely to be in Afghanistan at least another six months. Somalia and Yemen are likely to be nations that the United States will focus on next, Gibbons said.

"We've got terrorists all over the world," Gibbons said.