Former Clinton aide joins state’s anti-Yucca team

Tuesday, March 5, 2002 | 10:34 a.m.

John Podesta, a former White House chief of staff for President Bill Clinton, has been hired to help Nevada leaders lobby Congress against the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste project.

Podesta, part of the Washington lobbying firm of Podesta Mattoon, will work primarily with Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., to rally support for the state's position among Democrats in the Senate, where the next battle over Yucca Mountain is unfolding.

Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., who returned to Washington Monday following a two-week hiatus for undisclosed personal reasons, is said to be looking for a well-known Republican lobbyist to help him win the support of his GOP colleagues.

Gov. Kenny Guinn is expected to veto President Bush's recommendation of Yucca Mountain, 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas, within the next 40 days. The Senate, controlled by Reid and the Democrats, is expected to be Nevada's best chance of sustaining the governor's veto.

In a statement this morning, Reid said he has enlisted the help of Podesta and his brother, Anthony T. Podesta, to help him educate lawmakers on the national security risks and health dangers of shipping nuclear waste to Yucca Mountain.

"Nevada has a powerful new ally in John Podesta," said Reid, the Senate's assistant majority leader. "John served the nation well during his White House tour of duty."

Reid said Podesta, who was Clinton's chief of staff from 1998 through 2000, "stood with Nevada then and has decided to stand with Nevada now."

Details of how the Podesta brothers will be paid haven't been worked out.

But Nevada leaders have the option of funding the lobbying effort from a $500,000 anti-Yucca Mountain fund recently approved by the American Gaming Association in Washington, or from a $250,000 war chest set up by the Nevada Resort Association in Las Vegas. The state also can dip into its $5.3 million anti-dump fund to pay for the new lobbyists.

Reid and Ensign need 51 Senate votes to sustain Guinn's veto.

The senators have estimated that they have as many as 34 senators, mostly Democrats, on their side now.

"Finding the right group to help Nevada fight the Bush nuclear waste plan hasn't been easy," Reid said. "Big energy companies have spent an obscene amount of money in D.C. to gobble up most of the lobbying firms around town.

"Thankfully they were not able to buy one of the best. John is the right man to help educate lawmakers about just how dangerous President Bush's plan really is."