Nevada Waste Storage Measure Fails By Four Votes
(AllPolitics, June 3) -- A bill that would have allowed for the storage of nuclear utility radioactive waste in the Nevada desert failed on Tuesday in the Senate.
The tally headed off an effort to force a floor vote on the bill, forcing further debate on the tobacco legislation.
In a largely party-line vote, 56 senators voted for a motion to proceed on the nuclear waste bill, four short of the 60 votes needed to halt a promised filibuster.
Only three Democrats -- Charles Robb of Virginia, Ernest Hollings of South Carolina and Carl Levin -- were among the 56 senators.
The Senate passed a bill for nuclear waste storage in Nevada in April of last year by a 65-34 vote. The House cleared a similar bill in October by a 307-120 vote.
But attempts to resolve modest differences have been stymied for months, complicated by the strong opposition of Nevada's two Democratic senators, Harry Reid and Richard Bryan. They vowed to tie up the Senate in endless debate if the nuclear waste legislation was pursued.
Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss., had interrupted consideration of the $516 billion tobacco bill to consider the waste legislation. After the debate-limiting vote failed, the Senate quickly returned to the tobacco issue. Lott told reporters that word that the House would not take up the bill took "the wind out of our sails."
Reid said after the vote that the waste bill's sponsor, Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, told him that it would not be brought up for consideration again this year.
The utility industry has waged an intense lobbying effort to get the bill passed, arguing that the waste - generally used reactor fuel rods - has been piling up at power plants in 31 states while the government has failed to provide centralized storage promised 16 years ago.
A three-year fight
Reid and Bryan have waged a three-year battle to fight any legislation mandating storage in Nevada.
On Tuesday, they got help from supporters of tobacco legislation and from House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., who let it be known that he did not intend to take up a final waste bill in the House even if it passed the Senate.
That was enough to persuade at least nine Democrats who supported the waste bill last year to either reject its consideration this time or not vote at all.
Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., a 1997 supporter of the bill, said taking up the legislation now would only "send the bill to sure death in the House, but also kill the tobacco bill in the Senate.
"It's about ducking our responsibility; it's about Nevada politics," said Murkowski, "The wastes were never meant to be stored at the plants."
He said the thousands of tons of waste, which will remain deadly for thousands of years, can be kept more safely and at less cost at a centralized site.
Opponents said that would delay efforts to build a safer underground storage and force the cross-country shipping of the dangerous waste by truck and rail.
A hot issue in Nevada politics
President Clinton has promised to veto any bill that would mandate an interim storage facility in Nevada, pending full consideration of a proposed permanent burial site for the waste. A permanent disposal site at Yucca Mountain, also in the Nevada desert, is under consideration.
Reid argued that the waste can continue to be stored safely at reactor sites until a decision on a permanent underground facility is made. "The nuclear utilities just want to get rid of it," he said.
Nevadans fear the plan for temporary storage could make their state the nation's nuclear dump before the Yucca Mountain site is determined to be a safe underground storage site.
The plan is a hot issue in Nevada politics where Reid and Republican Rep. John Ensign, who is trying to unseat him, are angling to claim credit for fending off the utilities.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
|
News
Union
Video: