WEEK IN REVIEW: WASHINGTON, D.C.

Sunday, June 3, 2007 | 7:11 a.m.

WASHINGTON - In these days of nearly $4 a gallon gasoline and global warming, Yucca Mountain is finding it difficult to get some face time in Congress.

Look what happened when longtime nuclear advocate Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., introduced legislation recently to begin storing nuclear waste in Nevada as soon as 2010 - at the earliest seven years before the proposed nuclear waste dump would open at Yucca. The bill got more attention from the Democratic presidential contenders stumping in Nevada than it did on Capitol Hill - and it was hardly the kind of attention Domenici wanted.

Other energy issues are more pressing for the chairman of the Senate's Energy and Natural Resources Committee, New Mexico Sen. Jeff Bingaman, a Democrat who is not inclined to schedule a hearing on the Yucca bill anytime soon.

Bingaman and other Senate Democrats want to roll out a sweeping energy package this month to tackle such vast issues as higher fuel efficiency for cars, renewable energy investment and international energy diplomacy. After that, they're on to climate change legislation.

Yucca, as of now, is sitting on the bench.

Bingaman is focused on legislation he thinks will pass in this Congress, spokesman Bill Wicker said. What Wicker means is that Bingaman is not likely to take up legislation that generates about as much opposition from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid as would a bill to outlaw casino gambling.

"I don't think Harry Reid is the only person who has a problem with Yucca Mountain," Wicker continued. "With many of the other energy problems our nation has right now it's probably a middle priority, not a top priority."

Everyone knew Reid would be an obstacle. But in many ways Yucca Mountain has become a parochial issue, one Nevadans know deeply but the rest of the country seems to care about only from time to time.

Sure, the presidential contenders are talking about their positions on Yucca. Democrats are mostly opposed, while Republicans aren't quite saying, with the exception of Sen. John McCain, who supports it.

But do comments about Yucca that the candidates make in Las Vegas stay in Las Vegas? Do the candidates broadcast their opposition when shaking hands in New Hampshire?

Maybe Yucca will rise again to the national stage as the 2008 campaigns unfold and the Energy Department approaches its June 2008 deadline to submit a license application for the repository.

Nuclear power is bound to enter the congressional debate as Democrats bring energy bills to the floor in the coming weeks. Some believe nuclear energy provides an answer to global warming as a cleaner source than coal-fired electric power plants.

The day Domenici's bill was introduced, energy executives were meeting at the annual Nuclear Energy Institute conference in Miami, where the chief executive of Exelon Corp., the nation's largest operator of nuclear power plants, said the delay of Yucca Mountain until at least 2017 means the nation needs a federal site (or sites) to store the waste temporarily.

Unfortunately for them, Domenici's legislation puts that temporary storage site right outside Reid's back door. (The bill also would provide the Energy Department with the tools it needs to get the Yucca project back on track, including access to cash and land, precisely the assist Nevada's congressional delegation vows to fight.)

Even Domenici lowered the expectations, recognizing as he announced the legislation that "this bill faces long odds."

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