WASHINGTON -- The expected approval of a Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump by a House subcommittee today likely will set up an overwhelming vote of support for the project by the full House, congressional sources said.
In a vote as early as next week, as many as 300 lawmakers in the 435-member House could support the proposal to dump the nation's nuclear waste in Nevada, several sources said.
Not content with a mere majority, lobbyists who aggressively advocate the project are working to orchestrate a crushing victory.
The House's vocal advocates for Yucca also are working to assure wide pro-Yucca margins today in the House Energy and Air Quality subcommittee; on Thursday in the full Energy and Commerce Committee; and then in the full House. They want to roll the measure into the Senate with impressive momentum, sources said.
"I expect that this hearing will reaffirm my confidence in the suitability of Yucca Mountain, and the appropriateness of deciding once and for all that Yucca Mountain is the site that (Energy Department) should try to license," Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, subcommittee chairman, said during the first House hearing on the Yucca resolution last week.
It has been widely known that a majority of the House favors the proposal to permanently bury 77,000 tons of the nation's most radioactive waste in tunnels under the Nevada desert ridge.
But pro-Yucca lobbyists, including officials at the Nuclear Energy Institute, the industry's top trade and lobby group, are still pursuing House members. Lobbyists are trying to "get the best House vote we can," spokesman J. Scott Peterson said.
"Anytime you look at legislation, you want the best vote possible in both the House and the Senate," Peterson said. "A strong House vote makes for a more compelling case in the Senate."
The Senate is expected to vote by the end of July, and some insiders say its vote could be closer.
To keep the pressure on, NEI launched an advertising campaign, with AM radio commercials in the Washington area and ads in the Washington Post, Newsweek and Time magazines.
This week a NEI commercial that touts the clean-air benefits of nuclear power began running. The commercials, airing on CNN, Fox, MSNBC and the History and Discovery channels, will run through next month.
The spot features children playing. The announcer begins: "Know a kid today? They're part of the most energy-intensive generation in history. They demand lots of electricity -- and clean air. Don't tell them you have to sacrifice the environment for technology."
It concludes: "We need reliable electricity for the 21st century -- but we also need clean air. With nuclear energy, we can have both."
If the House passes the Yucca measure by a staggering margin, it becomes more difficult for Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., to rally senators against it, Reid said.
"It sure doesn't help," Reid said. He said he was counting on Nevada's two House members to corral as many of colleagues as possible to vote against Yucca.
Reps. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., and Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., are scrambling this week, they said.
Gibbons personally implored House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois, Majority Leader Richard Armey of Texas and Majority Whip Tom DeLay, also of Texas, to tone down their avid support for Yucca. The leaders are allowing Gibbons room to lobby some of fellow Republicans, Gibbons said.
Nuclear industry lobbyists aren't as accommodating. Gibbons said he had a list of "20 to 30" GOP colleagues whom he is leaning on to vote against Yucca Mountain. The lawmakers do not have nuclear power plants in their states but represent districts on proposed waste transportation routes.
"The problem I have is that every time I get someone to consider our position, they get hit with a (lobbying) steamroller from the nuclear energy industry," Gibbons said. "They are literally arm-twisting members into submission."
Gibbons declined to comment on whether 300 lawmakers were prepared to support Yucca.
"I'm not going to agree to that (number)," Gibbons said. "But we've got our work cut out for us."
Berkley enlisted the help of House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt of Missouri and Minority Whip Nancy Pelosi of California. Access to the whip operation will allow Berkley to get a rough count of pro- and anti-Yucca Democrats -- and those undecided -- just before the vote.
"There are no guarantees in any of this," Berkley said. "The Democrats are a pretty independent bunch. They don't go in lockstep with anybody."
It's not clear if the House vote will influence the Senate.
"The Senate is a unique body that operates quite differently than the House," Greg Christ, spokesman for Armey, said. "Vote counts are important, but we don't see it as a final predictor of how the Senate is going to act."
Anti-Yucca activist Anna Aurilio agreed the GOP-controlled House and Democratic-controlled Senate often act independently of one another.
"Sometimes you'll see the House stand up to the Senate and vice versa," Aurilio, legislative director for U.S. Public Interest Research Group, said. "Occasionally you have a real showdown."
Few senators are likely to be awed by the House vote on Yucca because strong House approval is so widely expected, several activists said.
"They (the House) already had momentum," Aurilio said. "No one was expecting a real fight in the House, unfortunately. It's time for the Senate to be the real deliberative body, the body that is not influenced by campaign contributions."
For an example of the House-Senate split, look no further than the recent controversy over oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The House supported it; the Senate shot it down last week.
"The Senate is a completely different place," said Ed Rothschild, a principal at Podesta-Mattoon who is working with lobbyist John Podesta to help Nevada Democrats coordinate anti-Yucca lobbying. "The Senate makes its own decisions."
Founding fathers created the Senate to give smaller states an equal voice with other states, even if their arguments are drowned out in the House, said congressional expert Christopher Deering, George Washington University political science professor.
So a House vote can have little influence on the upper chamber, he said.
Still, pro-Yucca lobbyists may believe an overwhelming House vote will grab them attention from senators, Deering said.
"They want to send a message that we're an industry with considerable clout," Deering said.
contact: grove@lasvegassun.com
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