LOOKING IN ON: WASHINGTON

Wednesday, Dec. 13, 2006 | 7:08 a.m.

WASHINGTON - Gov.-elect Jim Gibbons may have helped save the day in the nurses strike last week, but he is being criticized for missing votes during the waning days of Congress.

The Hill, a Capitol Hill newspaper, reported that Gibbons was among two representatives to miss every vote of the lame-duck session. The other was Rep. Lane Evans, D-Ill., who has Parkinson's disease and withdrew from duties in March.

A Gibbons spokeswoman previously told the Sun that he probably would not return to Washington unless his votes were needed because he was focusing on his transition to governor.

One taxpayer advocate was upset at the absences. "It's absolutely pathetic," David Williams, vice president of Citizens Against Government Waste, told The Hill. "This is their job: to cast votes."

Gibbons' spokeswoman said the congressman had pressing concerns at home, including the contract dispute between nurses and two Las Vegas hospitals. Gibbons was among the elected officials who persuaded the two sides to end the standoff and resume talks.

Congress passed a flurry of Nevada-related legislation before the session finished S aturday morning, including tax breaks, promised funding for the veterans' hospital in Las Vegas and others.

The Osborne family of Nevada sent what might look like some cute Christmas tree decorations to the White House. But actually, the family was sending a message.

For the past five years, the Osborne children - Stephen, 10, Sarah, 8, and Allston, 6 - have been in charge of decorations for the Nevada tree, which stands with others from every state in front of the White House.

Nevada's is adorned with cardboard cut outs of wild mustangs. The children adore the horses, which they watch while riding their ponies near the family's Reno home, their mother, Betsy Osborne, says. The children hate to see them rounded up and auctioned off and can't bear the thought of sending the animals to a slaughterhouse, she says.

Wild horses across the West had been protected under a 1971 act that stood until Sen. Conrad Burns, R-Mont., inserted a clause into a spending bill in 2004 allowing the slaughter of wild horses for human consumption.

Congress has tried to overturn the provision, but the Senate failed to act before the session ended.

With Republicans out of power, and Burns soon to be out of office - he lost his seat in the November election - opponents hope the new Congress will revisit the issue.

An academic consortium that has studied nuclear waste clean up at the nation's weapons lab complex for a decade is setting its sights on Yucca Mountain.

Researchers at Vanderbilt University will lead the effort to find safe ways to manage waste from the nation's civilian nuclear reactors.

The Energy Department is funding the consortium with a five-year, $6 million contract. The consortium includes researchers from Rutgers University, New York University, Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Howard University, University of Pittsburgh, University of Arizona and Oregon State University.