Campaign to include TV ad blitz

Benjamin Grove

Friday, March 22, 2002 | 11:15 a.m.

WASHINGTON -- If Nevada lawmakers meet for a special Legislative session to approve more taxpayer money to fight Yucca Mountain, much of the cash likely would be spent on television commercials, officials said.

Nevada officials said their campaign against the plan to bury nuclear waste in the state is much like a high-profile political campaign that may be won or lost on the airwaves.

"In order to move the kind of votes we're going to have to move in a very short amount of time, we are going to have to focus on some very expensive media markets," said Mark Brown of Brown & Partners Advertising and Public Relations, a firm working for Nevada. "We'll spend whatever we have."

Nevada leaders also could use additional money, perhaps as much as 30 percent, on grassroots efforts to build opposition to Yucca Mountain in key congressional districts, Brown said. The money could be used to pay locals to launch Internet, mail or phone campaigns, Brown said.

"We would rely heavily on local community leaders and on existing environmentalists and grassroots networks," Brown said.

At issue is the Yucca Mountain project, a plan to dump the nation's nuclear waste at the site 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. President Bush approved the plan and Gov. Guinn is expected to officially object, which would drop the issue in the hands of Congress. A vote is expected this year and Nevada officials are trying to line up 51 senators -- a majority -- to uphold Guinn's objection.

Both Yucca advocates and its critics -- mostly Nevada officials and environmentalists -- are engaging in an intense battle to lobby senators. Nuclear industry officials could spend roughly $30 million as part of a massive lobbying and public relations campaign, Guinn has said.

By contrast, Nevada officials so far have about $6 million, much of it approved last year by the Legislature ($4 million) and Clark County ($1 million). But much of the money is already committed -- the state is paying Washington law firm Egan & Associates about $2.5 million and Brown is getting about $1 million, said Bob Loux, director of the Nevada Agency for Nuclear Projects.

"We have talked about (television commercials) but the consensus is that unless we get a heck of a lot more money, we really can't afford it," Loux said.

Insiders say Nevada officials are planning commercials for limited release that could expand if the Legislature -- or private companies or other groups -- allocate more cash. State lawmakers have expressed doubt the state could afford it.

Guinn on Thursday confirmed that what the state needs now is not more lobbyists or lawyers but a sizeable cash outlay for targeted anti-Yucca Mountain television advertising.

"Right now we don't have the money to carry the message about transporting waste to the other states," Guinn said.

The idea is to let people know that nuclear waste will be rolling through towns and cities across the country if Congress OKs Yucca Mountain.

Of the $10 million Guinn is considering asking for, "virtually all of it would go toward advertising," he said.

"I can't collect money fast enough," he said.

Nevada's top anti-Yucca strategists -- including its four lawmakers in Congress, along with Guinn, Brown and high-profile Washington lobbyists Ken Duberstein and John Podesta -- have identified key media markets nationwide where anti-Yucca commercials could be most effective.

The markets fall mostly in 12 to 18 states that nuclear waste trucks and trains would travel through on their way to Yucca Mountain, Loux said. States include Indiana, Missouri and Nebraska where senators may be persuaded to oppose the Yucca waste repository.

But television time doesn't come cheap. A commercial might need to run at least 20 or 30 times in Kansas City for it to be seen by enough people to be worth the expense, said Christopher Klose a Washington political strategist whose firm works for Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev. That could cost roughly $175,000, he said. A similar buy in St. Louis might cost $260,000, he estimated.

Many East Coast markets could be far more expensive. Nevada officials who hope to win Sen. James Jeffords, I-Vt., would likely have to run ads in Boston or New York to reach an audience there, Klose said.

"It starts to add up fast," Klose said.

Although the nation is full of also-ran politicians who blame their losses on an opponent's last-minute television advertising, the results aren't guaranteed, several experts said.

Commercials can get a lawmaker's attention even if they don't generate instant outrage among constituents, said Tobe Berkovitz, a Boston University associate professor of public relations and advertising who studies political media buys.

"You're probably not going to see someone in Nebraska pick up the phone and call their senator," Berkovitz said. "But what commercials can do in a broader sense is shift public opinion, and the senator may pick up on that. And the local media will do stories about the ad and the issue will get attention that way."

Nevada officials can sway a small but crucial number of senators by advertising the risks of transporting nuclear waste through their state, Podesta told Nevada reporters in a conference call Thursday. That could include television advertising and grassroots work, he said.

"We have got to get that message out and we have to do that in all the ways we know how to do," Podesta said.

Sun reporter Jace Radke contributed to this story.