Washington Outlook
Edited by Richard S. Dunham
The Nuclear Waste Debate: All Over but the Shouting?
Mention the words "Yucca Mountain" to Senate Majority Whip Harry M. Reid, and you can expect an earful. For 14 years, the Nevada Democrat has been using every tool at his disposal to prevent the government from opening a nuclear-waste storage site beneath an isolated mountain 100 miles northwest of Las Vegas. And Reid's powers are considerable: He is the No. 2 Senate Democrat and controls the project's purse strings as chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee's energy subcommittee.
But Reid's mission may soon be all but impossible. The reason: Post-September 11, there is growing support on Capitol Hill to safeguard 45,000 tons of radioactive nuclear waste sitting idle at 103 nuclear power plants pending the opening of a national repository. While the plants were designed to withstand earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, and sabotage, experts worry that the waste could become a target of terrorists. "Now, there's a clear advantage to moving spent fuel to a geological repository," says Paul L. Leventhal, president of the Nuclear Control Institute, a nonpartisan research center. "Once you get it inside the mountain, it's safe from what humans could do to it."
STANDOFF. In wartime Washington, such security worries are overshadowing long-held environmental concerns. That complicates matters for Reid, who has been fighting plans to house the hazardous refuse in his state since the site was first authorized for study in 1987. Congress ordered the feds to begin transferring spent fuel to a repository by 1998, but Reid has delayed the project--despite the expenditure to date of nearly $4 billion for research and development.
Even before September 11, the political climate had begun to change. Unlike the Clinton Administration, the Bush White House strongly backs the project and argues that opening Yucca Mountain is crucial to building up America's nuclear-power capacity--a key to energy self-sufficiency. The Energy Dept. is expected to formally recommend Yucca as the nation's nuclear waste dump this winter. "In Nevada, there is a growing sense that this will happen," says Richard Siegel, a political science professor at the University of Nevada at Reno. "After all, there is no alternative plan."
TRAVEL RISK. Reid isn't giving up. He has the backing of the gaming industry and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle--who vows to kill the project. Plus, he has a national-security argument of his own: Radioactive byproducts would be shipped through 43 states. "Nuclear waste isn't going to suddenly appear at Yucca Mountain overnight," says Reid. "It has to be hauled on the highways and the railways of this country. There are more than 50 million people living along those highways and railways. They're all afraid of this. And now, with September 11, people are even more frightened."
Reid's last, best chance to block the deal could come next summer, when Congress is expected to have an up-or-down vote on the project. Environmentalists will blitz the Hill, arguing that Yucca's proximity to earthquake faults could cause groundwater contamination if a temblor occurs. So despite the new political dynamic, Yucca supporters aren't taking victory for granted. "Harry Reid is going to be a formidable opponent," says R. Bruce Josten, top lobbyist for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
That is undoubtedly true. But Reid must manage to convince his colleagues that ferrying waste to one facility-- where it will be buried in metal casks encased in multilayered, corrosion-resistant packaging stored in tunnels 1,000 feet below the mountain--is riskier than long-term storage at nuclear plants. That would have been tough even before September 11 demonstrated that terrorism can happen here.
By Laura Cohn
CAPITAL WRAPUP
So Much for Hedging Bets
Now that the Democrats are out of the White House, business is abandoning the old game of playing both sides of the political fence. In the first six months of 2001, corporate interests funneled $49.9 million of soft money into Republican coffers while giving just $19.7 million to Democrats, according to a Common Cause study released on Nov. 27. The most lopsided donor: automotive interests, which sent more than $1 million to GOP and only $6,750 to Dems.
CAPITAL WRAPUP
High Tech: Friendly Fire?
Are Pentagon hard-liners capitalizing on September 11 to push for tighter curbs on high-tech exports? Industry execs believe the tougher stance is behind the slower pace this year of export-license approvals for dual-use goods to China. During the 2000 campaign, George W. Bush vowed to ease curbs on exports of electronic goods that are readily available overseas. If he reverses course, U.S. computer and semiconductor equipment makers could lose ground globally, execs worry.
CAPITAL WRAPUP
Extra Special Interests
Lobbying is all about access, so it's no surprise that new security at the U.S. Capitol and its office buildings is tripping alarms along K Street. The American League of Lobbyists--the lobbyists' lobby--wants special IDs to ease entry to the Capitol and lawmakers' offices. That would let influence-peddlers skip long lines of tourists at checkpoints. "I'm standing behind the Patuxie Ladies Bowling League," complains ALL President James J. Albertine. "A lobbyist can't operate that way."
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Copyright 2001, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.
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