LOOKING IN ON: WASHINGTON

Sunday, Sept. 3, 2006 | 7:16 a.m.

WASHINGTON - Congress returns this week from summer recess to an agenda packed with legislation on the Iraq war. Republicans have bills on President Bush's terrorist surveillance program, military tribunals and border security, while reports say Democrats want a vote of no-confidence on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Focusing on the war is designed to tackle head-on one of the top issues on voters' minds this fall, and carve out the differences between Republicans and Democrats before the elections.

But before those debates start , the House will ease back into the work week with another emotional - if less weighty - legislative topic, a ban on horse slaughters.

Most of the Nevada delegation is backing the bill that would essentially put an end to domestic horse slaughtering at facilities that export the meat to dinner tables overseas. Europe and Japan are markets for the product, and more than 90,000 horses a year are slaughtered in the United States, according to the U.S. Humane Society. Nevada Republican Sen. John Ensign is carrying a similar bill in the Senate.

Such bills have been around for years. Ensign helped lead passage of a bill last year that aimed to curtail the practice by cutting off funding for federal plant inspectors. But a loophole allows the practice to continue, according to the animal activists.

"This is what a lot of people see as what's wrong with Washington - you have a bill that was so overwhelmingly supported," said Chris Heyde, deputy legislative director for the Society for Animal Protection Legislation .

The industry is fighting back, saying the bill would end a humane form of euthanasia available for horses. Caring for horses costs more than $1,800 a year. Without the option, thousands of unwanted horses would overwhelm the patchwork of rescue and adoption facilities, according to the Common Horse Sense, an industry-backed organization that has drawn support from other groups.

The figure is stuck in many Americans' minds - $300 billion - the well-known cost so far of the Iraq war.

The activist group moveon.org issued a report last week that explains the numbers in a way that hits a little closer to home. The group detailed how much money each congressional district has paid toward the war - and what that money could have funded.

Nevadans have contributed more than $2.7 billion toward the war effort, based on the federal taxes coming from the state, money that could have gone for children's health insurance, more public safety officers and new schools.

Broken down, that's $840 million from the 1st Congressional District, $934 million from the 2nd District and $1 billion from the 3rd. In each district, the taxes could have provided health insurance for more than 400,000 children or funded 20,000 police officers or built 100 schools, the report says.

"Nearly four years after Congress voted to authorize the Iraq war, it is time for President Bush's Republican allies in Congress to recognize the impact of the continuing occupation of Iraq on American taxpayers - and its impact on this nation's priorities," the group said in the report.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission needs a few hundred good engineers. The commission's new chairman, Dale Klein, said hiring is in full swing as the body that approves new power plants prepares for the onslaught of license applications coming from the nuclear power industry.

The first nuclear plants in a generation are expected to start being developed as part of the Bush administration's nuclear power renaissance. Klein said the commission expects applications for 27 new plants from more than a dozen different entities.

To handle the deluge, the commission is hiring 300 to 400 engineers annually, hoping to net 200 after attrition. Offices are being carved out of conference rooms.

But the commission that will also decide on Yucca Mountain's application to become the nation's nuclear waste repository is not yet ramping up for that job. Klein said the commission has been frustrated by false starts in the past with Yucca Mountain .

Klein said he'll be looking for milestones in the Energy Department's work before he invests in staff.