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More about Yucca Mountain

Thursday, May 16, 2002
Copyright Las Vegas Review-Journal

Senate committee sets June vote on Yucca Mountain

Full Senate has until late July to override Guinn veto of dump plan

WASHINGTON -- A resolution that would finalize Yucca Mountain for a nuclear waste repository could begin moving in the U.S. Senate on June 5, when the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee has scheduled a meeting to vote on the measure.

Chairman Jeff Bingaman, D-N.M., set the date on Wednesday. His announcement came a day before the committee convenes three days of hearings on the Nevada project.

The committee's vote will come near the end of a 60-day period designated by a 1982 nuclear waste law for the panel to consider the Yucca Mountain bill before moving it to the full Senate for resolution.

Committee spokesman Bill Wicker said the Yucca Mountain resolution might get delayed beyond June 5 if the panel is unable to clear away a backlog before then of 30 park bills and a controversial California water bill.

House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., put the Yucca Mountain resolution on a fast track, and it passed the House last week.

The Senate has until late July to pass the resolution, which would cement President Bush's designation of the Nevada site 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas for nuclear waste burial.

If the Senate fails to finish the bill by the end of the designated period, the Yucca Mountain Project would be considered killed under procedures set by Congress in 1982.

Sources have said Bingaman agreed to hold off his committee's work on the bill in a deal with Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev.

For his part, Reid removed a block he had on Margaret Chu of New Mexico to get confirmed as head of the Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management in the Energy Department, they said.

Reid and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., are studying possible procedural tactics to stall the legislation further, in addition to seeking votes to defeat the resolution outright.

Published vote counts indicate they remain short of the 51 needed to defeat the bill.

Their efforts are being supplemented by lobbying by environmental groups and by television commercials running in selected states.

Today, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham will lead off three Yucca Mountain hearings before members of the Senate energy committee.

Abraham will explain his reasons for recommending the Nevada site for a repository.

On Wednesday, Nevada lawmakers and possibly Gov. Kenny Guinn will explain their opposition to the project.

On May 23, the committee is scheduled to hear from technical experts from the Environmental Protection Agency, the General Accounting Office and other groups that have a role in overseeing or regulating the Yucca Mountain program.