Senate vote on Yucca may not happen before holiday break

Benjamin Grove

Thursday, June 20, 2002 | 11:03 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- Saber rattling over Yucca Mountain intensified today in the Senate, but it remained unclear if senators will vote on the project before their weeklong July 4 holiday recess.

Sens. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, and Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, the Senate's most outspoken Yucca advocates, have publicly and privately urged Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., to set a time for Yucca debate before the holiday break, which begins July 1.

Daschle, a close ally of Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., has said he would not call for a vote at all.

But Daschle cannot block a vote. Because of a unique provision in the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, any senator can call for a motion to proceed on Yucca debate at any time.

The Senate is now debating an important defense spending bill -- debate that is expected to stretch into next week. Republican Yucca proponents are exploring their options, including calling for a 10-hour Yucca debate in the middle of the defense bill debate, Craig spokesman Will Hart said.

Meanwhile Reid and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., are quietly urging their colleagues to vote against the motion to proceed on Yucca, essentially a vote on whether to hold a vote. They say that calling a Yucca vote against the wishes of the majority leader breaks with Senate tradition.

Craig and Murkowski are urging senators to reject the Nevadans' procedural maneuvering. They say the Nuclear Waste Policy Act allows them a unique opportunity to call for a vote against the wishes of the majority leader.

For the second day in a row, Murkowski today urged senators to debate and vote on Yucca before the July 4 recess.

"This matter is long overdue," Murkowski said. "It is an obligation of this body. The House has done its job. The Senate should do its job."

Assistant Majority Leader Reid spoke in response, making familiar arguments that nuclear waste cannot be geologically isolated from the environment at Yucca because of earthquake faults and groundwater.

Reid said people nationwide were awakening to the fact that waste would be hauled near their homes and that it cannot be shipped safely, an assertion the nuclear industry and Department of Energy officials flatly deny.

Reid closed by saying that setting aside the debate on defense spending to debate Yucca would be "distasteful."