GOP: Yucca Project Has The Votes

July 9, 2002

Yucca Mountain, a huge salt dome, has been chosen by the government for its remoteness and geological stability.

(CBS) Over earlier Democratic proclamations that the project was dead, the Senate seems ready to approve a plan to store nuclear waste from across the nation in Nevada's Yucca Mountain. Republican aides said head counts show a majority supports the proposal.

“There is ample support to get this done,” an aide said.

Backers plan to introduce a motion for the Senate to immediately begin consideration of the proposal, aides said. If it passes, there will be up to 10 hours of debate before a vote is held on whether to proceed with the $58 billion project.

Approval would be a victory for the Bush administration and the nuclear power industry, which sees a permanent disposal site as a key to a sound energy policy.

It would pose a defeat to some environmentalists – and especially Nevada lawmakers – who have argued that the facility would pose a risk to Nevadans.

The government has spent nearly $7 billion in search of a waste site, including $4.5 billion since 1978 studying Yucca Mountain, which is located 90 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Congress in 1987 directed that the Nevada site be the only one to be considered.

“They do seem to have the votes,” conceded a Democratic aide.

Sens. Bob Bennett and Orrin Hatch, both Utah Republicans, announced they would back the Yucca project after they were warned in a letter from U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham that if the facility was rejected it would “significantly raise the likelihood” that nuclear waste would be stored at a temporary site in their state.

Hatch and Bennett said they still had concerns about the transportation since most of the shipments bound for Yucca would go through Utah, including Salt Lake City. But they said they feared that if the Nevada site were not approved, the nuclear industry would begin to ship its waste to a proposed private storage site on an Indian reservation in Utah's Skull Valley.

“I would much rather have (the waste) pass through than stop and stay,” Bennett said.

Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., sent a letter to Bush Monday urging a delay in the vote until after the chamber completes work on a bill to crack down on the recent spate of corporate scandals. But aides to Republican lawmakers said the GOP would push ahead. Under a 1982 nuclear waste law, any senator may bring the matter up for quick consideration by the Senate as long as action is taken before July 25. GOP senators have accused Daschle of trying to block Yucca Mountain by not bringing it up for a vote by that deadline.

“We always knew this would be an uphill battle,” said Tessa Hafen, a spokeswoman for Senate Majority Whip Harry Reid, D-Nev., who has helped lead the charge against it.

Congressional approval would clear the way for the Energy Department to apply to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to license the project, scheduled to open in 2010 and hold 70,000 tons of radioactive material, which is currently being stored in sites across the United States. Many of those waste storage tanks are nearly full.

The Senate will vote on a resolution to override Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn's veto in April of Bush's decision to accept a recommendation by Abraham to build the facility in Nevada. A similar resolution passed the Republican-led House of Representatives in May on a bipartisan vote of 306-117.

Nuclear power plants produce more than 20 percent of the country's energy. The spent fuel from those plants is radioactive.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said the nuclear industry has a history of safe waste shipments and that wastes will be in containers designed to withstand severe accidents. He predicted that industry would pursue “alternative, makeshift ... arrangements” if Yucca were rejected. In either case, said Abraham, “wastes will be shipped across America.”

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