Nevadans look ahead: Obstacles remain for government to proceed

Benjamin Grove

Wednesday, July 10, 2002 | 11:14 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., took a quick phone call Tuesday from Gov. Kenny Guinn in the middle of the Senate debate on Yucca Mountain, a few hours before the state lost its epic battle to keep the nuclear waste dump out.

Reid, a former amateur boxer, told Guinn he was in the midst of a fight that reminded him of his days as a youth scrapping in a pool hall.

"I told him, 'Kenny, I've been called out in the pool hall,' " Reid said. "I said, 'I'm just going to wade in and do the best I can.' "

Nevada reeled from the flurry of punches: The Senate voted 60-39 to approve a resolution to build a national nuclear waste dump at Yucca, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

It was the final congressional hurdle for the controversial project -- the House approved the project in May -- and marked a significant milestone in the project's 20-year history.

But while Nevada took a beating Tuesday, it wasn't the final fight. Yucca Mountain faces other challenges before the project is constructed.

State officials vow to continue the fight.

"I feel kind of invigorated," Reid said. "I feel so right in my heart I did the right thing and I'm energized to keep fighting. I'm not down on my back being counted out."

The state's focus moves from politics to lawsuits and the licensing process.

By law, the Energy Department, which manages the Yucca Mountain site, has 90 days to apply for a license to permanently bury the nation's most high-level radioactive waste in tunnels at the desert ridge.

But the Energy Department has signaled it will not meet that deadline and intends to submit the license by December 2004. The department is not expected to pay any penalties for the delay, a Nuclear Regulatory Commission spokeswoman said.

The NRC must review the license application, and approval could take up to four years. Public hearings will be part of the review process. State officials say the hearings will show the flaws in the Energy Department's science and that could derail the project.

Meanwhile, Nevada, Las Vegas and Clark County will pursue lawsuits already pending in federal court, officials said.

Guinn said the state would fare better in its court challenges, "and we are highly confident that Nevada will prevail."

If Yucca survives the review and legal challenges, the first national nuclear waste dump would be built 1,000 feet below the Earth's surface. Waste would be shipped to Yucca as early as 2010 from 131 temporary storage sites nationwide.

Many critics say that timeline is unlikely. The project has been plagued by delays and cost overruns.

Reid, who sits on the Senate Appropriations Committee, pledged to slow the project by squeezing its budget each year. He is also chairman of the Senate subcommittee that oversees the NRC, which in a sense gives him oversight of the review process. He vowed to be a "more aggressive" NRC watchdog in the approval process.

Reid and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., said their intense efforts to lobby their colleagues were overwhelmed by lobbying by the nuclear industry and White House.

Forty-five of 49 Republicans voted for Yucca, with three voting against it -- Sen. Jesse Helms of North Carolina did not vote.

Fifteen Democrats voted for Yucca. Independent Sen. James Jeffords of Vermont, who once signaled support for Yucca, voted against it.

Ensign takes blame

A dejected Ensign was apologetic that he could not muster more than two Republicans to vote against the project.

"I cannot describe to you the level of disappointment I feel," said Ensign, who campaigned for his seat saying the state needed a Republican who could lobby the GOP. "I take responsibility for not getting more Republicans. I did everything I could to get Republican votes, and I failed to get those."

Reid had only praise for Ensign's effort. As the Senate vote was nearing an end, Reid and Ensign met in the well of the Senate, Reid put his hand on Ensign's shoulder, the two shook hands and exchanged a few quiet words.

"It's very difficult for a senator to fight the president," Reid said later.

Nuclear industry leaders, Yucca advocates in the Senate and Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham cheered the vote.

"We are pleased that the Congress agrees moving forward is the right thing to do, rather than cutting off the process now and leaving nuclear waste for future generations to deal with," Abraham said.

The vote was crucial for the Energy Department because nuclear utilities are suing it because it broke a contractual agreement to begin hauling waste to Yucca by 1998, Abraham said.

He said the vote paved the way for companies to someday build new nuclear plants in America because Yucca Mountain solves the waste problem.

Industry leader Joe Colvin praised senators for the "courage of their convictions to choose good public policy in the face of intense political pressure."

"The Senate's approval of the Yucca Mountain resolution is a clear signal of continued congressional support for nuclear energy," said Colvin, president of the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's top trade group.

Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, who for years has argued to move nuclear waste stored in his state to Yucca, joined Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, in breathing a sigh of relief after a long struggle.

"The time for a permanent nuclear waste repository has come," Craig said.

Craig dismissed optimism among Nevada officials that pending lawsuits could derail the project.

"I look at their record (in court)," Craig said. "And the scoreboard says state of Nevada: zero."

Abraham declined to comment directly about the lawsuits.

"Nevada has had its day," Abraham said.

Battle continues

Environmental groups vowed to continue their fight against Yucca.

Public Citizen plans to dog the NRC during its licensing process, activist Lisa Gue said. The group and several other organizations joined Nevada in its lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency challenging its safety standards for Yucca.

Reid and Ensign stressed that the money raised in Nevada to fight Yucca was not wasted.

About $9 million in public and private money was spent, much of it committed to ongoing legal battles and about $2 million for public relations and anti-Yucca commercials that ran in seven states. The nuclear industry spent three times that, Nevada officials have said.

Of the 14 senators in the seven states, only three voted against Yucca: Sens. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa; Jean Carnahan, D-Mo., and Jeffords. Reid said the commercials drove the nuclear industry crazy.

"We'd run one ad, and they'd come back with 10 or 15," Reid said.

Ensign said the money awakened Americans to the folly of the repository and the risks of shipping waste. That, he said, will pay dividends in the future.

"You're building a case," Ensign said. "The money was well spent."

The much-anticipated vote followed a long, sometimes emotional debate, with nearly one-fifth of the 100-member Senate arguing their points.

Scientists have not found any scientific evidence that would disqualify the site, Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., argued, adding that experts at the NRC, not the Senate, should have final review.

"The Department of Energy still needs to convince the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that the repository is safe before construction of the repository would begin or before transportation of waste to the site would begin," Bingaman said.

Shipping worries

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., said shipping waste cross-country to Nevada endangered people living, working and going to school along the transportation routes. She toted to the Senate floor maps of Sacramento and Los Angeles bisected by likely waste-shipping routes. One-fifth of the 35 million people in California live within a mile of the routes, she said.

"I say to my colleagues, this is a moment of truth for every person here," Boxer said. "The things we do can come back to haunt us."

Murkowski led arguments in favor of Yucca. He dismissed Boxer's maps and reminding senators that final waste routes have not been determined.

"These are not proposed routes," Murkowski said. "They are possible routes."

Sens. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., and Carnahan said they were opposed to Yucca because the Energy Department had not outlined a safe waste shipping plan.

"Fundamentally, I want the waste out of Michigan," Stabenow said. "But I don't want to create more risks in the process."

In his final speech Reid spoke directly to several nuclear industry lobbyists "in their Gucci shoes and their nice suits" sitting in the Senate gallery.

"Bill your hours. Feel good about yourselves," Reid chided. "You are perpetrating a travesty on the people of this country."

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., said President Bush had tied the hands of lawmakers when he approved Yucca, forcing them by law to act before key scientific studies at Yucca were completed.

"The administration is doing the bidding of special interests that simply want to make deadly nuclear waste they have generated someone else's problem," Daschle said.

But Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., pleaded with senators not to kill Yucca after two decades of research.

"We are going to look at this issue every year congressionally, as we should," Lott said, assuring senators they would still have some oversight. "We shouldn't abandon all these years of effort."

Reid rejected the notion that it is now time for Nevada to negotiate in Congress to obtain money or other concessions for Yucca.

"There is no deal to be made," Reid said. "They are not going to give us anything. We're just going to have to work our way through this."

Reid joked that for its legal efforts Nevada had the best "high-priced lawyer" in the nation in Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, who watched the Senate vote in the gallery. Goodman joked that he was working on this case "pro bono."

"We just can't back off," Goodman said. "We'll keep fighting."

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