Daschle, Reid man phones to solicit ‘no’ votes

Benjamin Grove

Monday, July 1, 2002 | 10:57 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., and his top deputy, Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., will make phone calls to their Democratic colleagues this week in a final-hour effort to secure "no" votes on Yucca Mountain, Daschle said.

Congress is taking a week-long holiday break, but lawmakers are expected to take action on the nuclear waste project when they return next week.

Most observers expect the Senate to approve the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Between 58 and 62 senators will vote for it, Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, a Yucca advocate, predicted. A simple majority, 51 senators, is needed to pass the resolution approving Yucca Mountain as the site of the nation's nuclear waste dump.

While Reid has said 30 or 35 Democrats would vote "no" on the controversial waste dump plan, a number of Democrats have not told their top two leaders how they intend to vote, Daschle told reporters Friday.

Daschle offered no predictions of the vote outcome.

"I really don't know the degree to which we'll get Republican support," Daschle said.

Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., also will be talking to senators during the July 4 break, spokeswoman Traci Scott said.

"We're still lobbying," she said.

Ensign has been working overtime in recent months, seeking GOP allies. But so far only Ensign and Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, R-Colo., have openly opposed Yucca. Reid last week said three Republicans may be leaning against Yucca, but GOP critics doubt that's true.

The most recent "undecided" senator to publicly announce a position was Sen. Jean Carnahan, D-Mo., who on Friday said she would not support Yucca because she doesn't want the nation's waste hauled through her state. "I don't want Missouri to become the nation's nuclear waste superhighway," she said.

Outside the Senate both advocates and critics of the project are expected to continue pressuring senators.

Anti-Yucca environmentalists and other activists plan small events around the country, while pro-Yucca nuclear industry officials are running advertisements in favor of the dump.

A nuclear industry coalition group called Alliance for Sound Nuclear Policy is sponsoring radio spots in Louisiana, Georgia, Arkansas and Vermont, said alliance director Sherry Reilly. The ads urge people to call their senators in support of Yucca.

Meanwhile officials with the Nuclear Energy Institute, an industry lobby group, will meet with "anybody that we can," this week, although senators and many key staffers are out of town, said Mitch Singer, NEI spokesman.

Environmental groups plan to step up their grassroots efforts, urging people to contact their senators while they are back in their states, said Lisa Gue, an activist with Public Citizen, which has led a charge against Yucca. Activists plan to meet with several senators, Gue said.

An anti-Yucca media event featuring the Indigo Girls, a rock duo, is planned in Chicago for Wednesday, Gue said. And activists towing mock nuclear waste containers are traveling in Indiana, Georgia, Florida and Connecticut, to tout the potential risks of hauling nuclear waste cross-country to Yucca.