US House to vote on Yucca waste site resolution
Date: 26-Apr-02
Country: USA
The panel overwhelmingly approved a resolution, expected to go before the full House for anticipated approval in two weeks, that would override Nevada Gov. Kenny Guinn's veto of President George W. Bush decision to construct the $58 billion project in the Nevada desert.
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, who has said the government had no alternative to the Yucca Mountain project, said Thursday's action demonstrated bipartisan support for the resolution, which passed 41-6.
"We know there's going to be opposition, but the actions by the committee demonstrate the broad bipartisan support for this issue," he said at a news conference.
Guinn and other opponents have essentially conceded defeat in the Republican-led House, but are focusing their efforts in the Democratic-led Senate. Democratic leaders there, headed by Majority Whip Harry Reid of Nevada, are waging a battle against it with the help of Sen. John Ensign, a Nevada Republican.
Yet they acknowledge it will be an uphill battle to prevent a Senate override, and the state Nevada has already filed a lawsuit to challenge the administration's plans in court.
Under 1982 federal law on nuclear waste disposal, a governor may veto a president's plans to put a depository in his or her state. But the veto can be overridden if both the House and Senate agree to do so.
There is no date for a Senate vote. But under the federal law, if it fails to act within 90 working days after Guinn filed his veto with Congress on April 9, the veto stands.
If the veto is overridden, the project would next go to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for licensing.
The U.S. Energy Department hopes to open the repository in 2010 and bury 70,000 tons of nuclear waste in it over 24 years.
Several states with nuclear power plants, as well as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups, support the Yucca Mountain designation. Together they have hired an army of lobbyists to make their case on Capitol Hill.
Nevada and its backers also have their own lobbyists, and have started to air television ads in effort to mount public opposition.
The group contends it would be unsafe to store nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain as well as to transport the material by truck and rail to the underground site through as many as 44 states.
A Nevada lawmaker who testified at a Congressional hearing on transporting nuclear waste yesterday said that the energy department had not fully studied at least 41 percent of the sites whose waste would be transported to Yucca Mountain.