Porter: Yucca Mountain 'Still Alive'

Mar 26 - Las Vegas Review - Journal

Rep. Jon Porter took a big swing at Yucca Mountain spending this week. After failing to hit the nuclear waste project head-on, he aimed a followup blow against Democrats.

He also may have exposed a crack in what has been a united fight by Nevada lawmakers against the repository.

In the House Budget Committee late Wednesday, Porter, a Republican, promoted an amendment that would have put pressure on Congress to delete $494.5 million in 2008 spending for Yucca, the entire amount requested by the Energy Department.

It would have zeroed out Yucca Mountain from a nonbinding budget resolution, a Democrat-written blueprint lawmakers will consult when they pass spending bills later this year.

Porter argued the Yucca project was riddled with quality assurance problems and beyond repair. But Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D- Ore., said the amendment was too far-reaching to be debated in five or 10 minutes. Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Texas, said the issue needed to be handled by the Appropriations Committee.

The amendment was defeated 23-12. Eleven Republicans joined Porter in voting for the amendment. Twenty-two Democrats and one Republican, Dan Lungren of California, voted to kill it.

"The real message is the majority of Republicans on this committee are saying time out and the majority of Democrats said move forward," on nuclear waste in Nevada, Porter said after the vote.

He said it underscored that Nevada has enemies in both parties when it comes to Yucca Mountain, not just Republicans.

"The reality is that Yucca Mountain is still alive," Porter said.

That is a different message than "Yucca Mountain is dead," that Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., has promoted.

When Porter put out a press release declaring Democrats "unanimously voted to keep the project alive," it ruffled feathers in the office of Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev.

She would have persuaded Democrats to vote against Yucca Mountain, but Porter did not invite her help, Berkley spokesman David Cherry said.

"Perhaps some Democrats would have come along had someone made an overture toward the senior member of the Nevada House delegation and its only Democrat."

As for the message that Democrats are pro-Yucca, Cherry said, "Dumping nuclear waste in Nevada has been a priority for President Bush since he took office in 2001."

Nevada lawmakers said other chances to attack Yucca funding will arise this year.

"Yucca Mountain is on its last breath and everyone knows it," a Reid spokesman said.