Craig Bill On Nevada Nuclear Waste Site Advances In Senate

Legislation advanced Wednesday in the Senate that would require Nevada to accept a temporary storage site for highly radioactive nuclear waste. But it faces a likely presidential veto should it clear Congress.

The bill, co-sponsored by Republican Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho, was approved by the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, 12-6, largely along party lines. The vote set the stage for likely action on the Senate floor later this year. All 11 Republican members and one Democrat voted for the measure.

Nevada’s two senators immediately denounced the bill and said they would do everything in their power to block it on the Senate floor.

Sen. Richard Bryan, D-Nev., said he also had been assured by White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta that the president would veto the legislation if it emerges from Congress.

“The president will have the final say with his veto pen,” said Bryan who along with Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., met with Panetta earlier in the week to discuss the bill.

In a separate action, the committee voted to direct the Interior Department to transfer land near Needles, Calif., over to the state for construction of a low-level waste site at Ward Valley. The state already has given its approval to the waste site.

The nuclear industry has been pressing for the Ward Valley waste site to be opened for such material as contaminated clothing and other low-level radioactive trash from power plants, laboratories and hospitals, and for construction of an interim storage site for more highly radioactive nuclear spent fuel.

The industry argues that Congress gave assurances more than a decade ago that the government would assume responsibility for nuclear spent fuel storage by 1998.

There are 30,000 tons of used nuclear fuel at commercial nuclear power plants across the country. Utilities are running out of underwater storage space for used fuel at plant sites and will have to build expensive above-ground dry storage at the sites if a central facility is not built. A handful of utilities have built dry storage facilities.

The bill, sponsored by Craig and Sen. Frank Murkowski, R-Alaska, would require the Energy Department to accept ownership of the spent fuel by 1998 and begin construction of an interim site in Nevada by November, 1999.

The Yucca Mountain area about 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas has been singled out as a permanent underground storage site for high-level nuclear wastes such as the commercial spent fuel. But the Energy Department has yet to determine if the site will be suitable, and Nevadans are concerned the interim site will become permanent if Yucca Mountain is rejected.

The committee approved an amendment that would take Nevada off the hook for an interim storage site if the permanent Yucca Mountain site is found to be unsuitable - but only if another interim site is available. Nevada lawmakers said there would be no incentive to seek out an alternative interim site, if the bill becomes law.