Senate opens Yucca debate

Benjamin Grove

Tuesday, July 9, 2002 | 11:17 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Nevada's senators made an impassioned last-minute stand on the Senate floor today trying to stop the government from establishing a high-level nuclear waste dump 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

The Senate began debate on a resolution to put the dump at Yucca Mountain this morning after a deal was struck by Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., and Republican leaders that established debate rules.

A vote could come as soon as this evening, and Reid and Ensign noted this morning that there was no way they could block it.

"Sen. Reid and I obviously are vehemently opposed to this bill and even opposed to this bill being on the floor today," Ensign said.

Reid said he knew the matter would eventually surface in the Senate and grudgingly acknowledged "the day has arrived."

Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, long a champion of putting the dump in Nevada, introduced the motion to proceed with Yucca Mountain. Ensign launched a debate on Senate procedure, arguing that only Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., should be allowed to bring Yucca to the floor, according to Senate tradition.

He said Murkowski's action set a dangerous precedent.

"This precedent is in the eye of the beholder and that's what makes it so dangerous," Ensign said. "Every senator needs to reflect on this vote very, very carefully. This vote could literally change the way that the Senate operates."

Murkowski said he was well within Senate rules under the Nuclear Waste Policy Act.

"Despite what has been said, we are proceeding under Senate rules," Murkowski said. "I hope we can put that matter to rest that we are somehow violating or circumventing Senate rules here."

Early debate focused on transporting nuclear waste. Ensign challenged the Energy Department statistic cited by Murkowski that only 175 shipments of nuclear waste would travel to Yucca each year. Murkowski acknowledged it was an estimate because transportation plans have not been finalized.

The Alaska senator sought to shift focus from waste transportation to the narrow resolution before the Senate: whether to approve Yucca.

Reid and Ensign enlisted the help of Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., who asked Murkowski pointed questions about waste shipments. But it was not immediately clear how Specter intended to vote today.

Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, another Yucca advocate, derided Ensign's questions about waste shipments as mere fear-mongering.

"It is an alarmist political tactic to try to kill this very effort," Craig said.

The senators agreed to 4 1/2 hours of debate on the procedures, with a vote coming afterward. The procedural vote was expected to be the final one in which each senator's vote would be recorded -- a simple voice vote on the Yucca resolution was to come directly after the procedural vote.

"We call this a procedural vote, but it is in fact a test of the majority," Reid said.

In the spirited debate between Ensign and Murkowski, the Alaska senator tried to downplay concerns about Yucca. He said federal agencies would make sure waste shipments were safe.

"All we're doing is allowing the (Energy) secretary to apply for the license" for Yucca, Murkowski said. "The act does not address the transportation or storage."

But Ensign said that was a paramount concern as the Senate would never have another chance to debate the nuclear dump.

"Today is the only time the Senate would have to vote," Ensign said, noting the Energy Department had only provided estimates on the number of shipments and couldn't say if "I have 20 shipments coming through my state or if I have 1,000 shipments a year coming through my state."

Reid and Ensign faced long odds on swaying the Senate against the 20-year-old nuclear waste proposal.

Dealing a blow to Reid, fence-sitter Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said he will vote for the plan to construct a national waste dump on desert land adjacent to the Nevada Test Site.

Durbin, a longtime Reid ally, has opposed Yucca-related legislation in the past. But Illinois is home to more nuclear reactors than any other state, and its lawmakers have been under great industry pressure to support Yucca.

Durbin said his support for Yucca is rooted partly in his belief that strict radiation standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency will protect humans and the environment.

"All of these standards greatly exceed the standards debated by Congress in the two previous bills I opposed," Durbin wrote in an article in today's Chicago Tribune.

Two other "undecided" senators -- Utah Republicans Orrin Hatch and Robert Bennett -- on Monday publicly announced that they would vote for Yucca.

The two got assurances from Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham and White House officials that a vote for Yucca was a vote against the Skull Valley reservation proposal. That plan would establish a temporary waste site on Goshute Indian property in the west Utah desert.

Abraham emerged with the Utah senators after a White House meeting saying that the private sector would be forced to develop to "makeshift, ad hoc" above-ground waste sites if Yucca is defeated.

"My message is, in short, that if Yucca Mountain moves ahead, sites such as the Utah site will not move ahead," Abraham said.

The Utah senators agreed that Yucca was the best solution to the nation's waste problem despite grave concerns about the waste traveling through Utah.

"I would much rather have it pass through than stop and stay," Bennett said.

The Utah senators said Yucca was the lesser of two evils compared to the Goshute repository because waste would be underground at the Nevada site that has been scrutinized for 20 years.

"I don't feel good about this at all," a grim-looking Hatch said. "These (Nevadans) are our neighbors to the west. But we all have to represent our constituents the best we can."

Ensign spokeswoman Traci Scott would not comment on the Utah senators' decision. Ensign had leaned on the Republicans heavily, and the two said his concerns about waste shipments weighed heavily on their minds.

Several other senators today still were not announcing their stance, including Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-R.I., who has voted against Yucca in a previous vote. A Chafee spokeswoman said he had plans to meet with Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman later today.

Goodman arrived in Washington on Monday to lobby key senators, and planned to hammer the message that transporting waste across the country invited accidents and terrorist threats. Goodman, once Specter's law clerk, met with the senator for breakfast this morning. Specter didn't tell Goodman how he intended to vote.

Goodman said President Bush and the Energy Department "are willing to play a game of Russian roulette with America's cities."

"Our Washington officials are arrogant to think they know all the answers on how to prevent a nuclear accident or terrorist attack when shipping radioactive cargo through our country," Goodman said. "How can they assume this when the DOE has not answered the most basic questions on the subject of the safety of nuclear transportation or public security in its 5,000-page environmental-impact statement?"

In other action Monday, Daschle made a final plea to Bush to call off Senate Republicans.

Daschle argued that the Senate should focus this week on a bill aimed at corporate reform, not on Yucca.

Bush today delivered a speech outlining solutions to a wave of corporate accounting scandals.

"I am writing to ask you to prevail upon members of your party in the Senate to refrain from this ill-considered and ill-timed effort to sidetrack the accounting reform bill," Daschle wrote Bush.

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