New Nuclear Waste Plan Targets Nevada

A key Senate committee Wednesday approved a measure to revive the federal search for a long-term storage facility for nuclear waste, adding a provision that would greatly increase the probability that it would be stored in Nevada.

But Nevada officials, protesting the “singling out” of their state, vowed to fight the move.

The Senate Energy Committee’s 17-1 vote to resume the search for an underground dump for used nuclear reactor fuel rods and other high-level radioactive wastes broke an extended deadlock on the waste program.

The program had been stalled because of objections from states being considered for the site and complaints of Energy Department mismanagement.

But, with the wastes piling up at reactors around the country and pressure intensifying from the nuclear industry, Energy Committee Chairman J. Bennett Johnston (D-La.) won agreement on a compromise that defused opposition from two of the three states being considered for the site--Texas and Washington.

The key new provision would direct the government to proceed with testing at one site and to test others only if the first one proves to be unsuitable. Johnston privately has promised members of the committee that the Nevada site--in the Yucca Mountains near the California border--will be the first in line, according to staff members and lobbyists working on the issue.

The bill “singles out Nevada,” charged Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who said he would “fight what has become a political leper.”

Sen. Chic Hecht (R-Nev.) said that he is “convinced this is the wrong approach for this country to be taking,” and he suggested that the waste either remain in storage above ground or be buried under the sea. The Energy Department has discounted such alternatives as more risky.

If passed by the Senate, the bill still would face stiff opposition in the House, where Interior Committee Chairman Morris K. Udall (D-Ariz.) plans hearings next week on a bill that would form a high-level commission on the issue and attempt to negotiate a financial deal with any state willing to accept a waste repository.

But, for the time being, the vote has pulled the program out of limbo.

“What he has proposed to do has a very seductive quality, to limit the number of states that feel themselves to be at risk, and thereby get support from everyone who feels no longer at risk,” said an aide to one senator, not from Nevada, who has monitored the negotiations.

Energy Department officials have insisted that some site must be found for the waste, which is increasing rapidly and can be accommodated for the long term only in an area with the geology to keep it secure for thousands of years.

In breaking the deadlock, Johnston added to the political attractiveness of his proposal by tying it to legislation to cut the federal deficit that the Senate must consider after its August recess. By eliminating testing at the other two sites, he contends that his proposal would save roughly $140 million next year--which opponents dispute.