Matching $1.5 million now available for nuke campaign

Monday, June 24, 2002 | 11:14 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- The Legislative Counsel Bureau has reversed its decision that $1.5 million donated by Clark County to fight a nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain could not be matched by state funds.

State officials plan to use the funds to make a final public relations push as the U.S. Senate prepares to vote on the issue next month.

Gov. Kenny Guinn said today the money permits Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., to fulfill the contractual commitments they made for the national advertising campaign.

Brenda Erdoes, chief attorney for the Nevada Legislature, said Friday she changed her legal opinion after she received more information.

She told the Legislative Interim Finance Committee last week matching funds could not be used for the county's donation for legal expenses.

On Friday she said she started to notify state legislators about the change.

Bob Loux, Nevada's Nuclear Projects Office director, said this will allow the state to "intensify its efforts."

The legislative committee allocated $3 million for the public relations campaign on the condition that it on be matched. Clark County allocated $1.5 million for the legal fight against the proposed nuclear dump 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas.

"They had a misunderstanding," Guinn said this morning of the original legal opinion. Loux added there was "miscommunications" with Erdoes that led to her first opinion.

The money from Clark County will be put into a legal fund. A like amount in the state legal fund will be withdrawn and used as the match. Loux said there were no restrictions on the money he is taking out of the legal account.

The money comes just in time, Guinn said. "We're getting close to the final day." The Senate is expected to vote in the next few weeks to override Guinn's veto of the proposed repository.

"We're seeing progress all over the country," Guinn said of the effort on television, radio, the website, meetings with newspaper editors and TV appearances.

Reid, who has urged state and local governments as well as the public to rally behind a fund-raising effort, believed it would have been an error for the legislative panel to not match the $1.5 million.

"Sen. Reid had hoped all along that they would release that money," his spokeswoman, Tessa Hafen, said this morning.

However, Reid did not call Guinn or state lawmakers to ask them to make the match, Hafen said. "This was a state decision."

Guinn's chief of staff, Marybel Batjer, said the state would have had to stop some of its planned advertising if the $1.5 million had not been forthcoming. "It would have been a disaster."

Batjer said those directing the advertising campaign may target Pennsylvania and Georgia next. Nevada has to be careful about its strategy because as soon as the nuclear waste industry learns where the state is going, it comes in with more money to offset its effort, she said.

Proponents of a high-level nuclear dump have been pushing for an early Senate vote. Loux said Nevada supporters see that as a sign that the state may be making progress as it tries to gather 51 votes to stop the Yucca dump.

Guinn said Reid, the Senate majority whip, and Ensign are directing the national effort. "They decide where the money should go. They're making a tremendous effort." Sun reporter

Benjamin Grove contributed to this story.