Nuclear Information and Resource Service 1424 16th Street, #404, Washington, DC 20036 202-328-0002; fax: 202-462-2183; e-mail: nirsnet@igc.apc.org web: www.nirs.org August 1, 1996 Senate Votes 63-37 in favor of S. 1936 Yesterday at 5 pm, the Senate voted 63-37 in favor of S. 1936, the "Mobile Chernobyl Act." This should be seen as a major victory! Our goal was to match the cloture vote total of 2 weeks ago--34 votes. We exceeded that by three votes, showing not only that momentum is on our side, but that it will be very easy to sustain President Clinton's promised veto (a promise he again affirmed July 30). Even DOE Secretary Hazel O'Leary wrote a letter against the bill. WHAT HAPPENS NEXT The House is unlikely to take up this legislation before it recesses on Saturday. When the House returns in September, there are three possibilities: 1) it could consider HR 1020 (Upton, R-Mich.), which currently has about 200 co-sponsors. The problem with this, from the nuclear industry point of view, is that the House would then pass a different bill than the Senate, which would necessitate formation of a Senate-House conference committee. This would create two more filibuster opportunities for Nevada Senators Reid and Bryan. However, one danger is that a conference committee could try to change the legislation to be still more acceptable to President Clinton and thus attempt to avert a veto. 2) The House could simply consider S. 1936. Senate Republicans are reportedly urging this option. This way, a conference committee could be avoided, and thus the filibuster opportunities, and the final bill could be placed on Clinton's desk in early September--giving plenty of time for a veto override vote (although the industry will certainly be lobbying the White House hard to not veto the bill). However, the House traditionally does not like simply adopting Senate bills and not allowing amendments (even one amendment would require formation of a conference committee), and our initial information suggests that this bill is no different. 3) The House leadership could decide that a veto is certain and that veto will be sustained, so why bother... In this event, the bill would not come up in the House at all. House members want to adjourn as early as possible so they can spend full-time campaigning and at least some potential legislation will not be acted upon this year. Our best guess is that the first possibility will occur, and that a House floor vote on HR 1020 and possible amendments will take place shortly after Labor Day. WHAT YOU CAN DO Throughout August (except during the political conventions), your Representative is likely to be in your district. Try to attend town meetings or otherwise meet with your Representative and his/her local staff and make clear your opposition to HR 1020 and S. 1936. You might want to meet with any candidates challenging your Representative as well. Especially in major transport states, this could become a campaign issue. Also, be sure to write your Representatives during August expressing your opposition to either HR 1020 or S. 1936. In addition, toward the end of the month, NIRS will circulate a group sign-on letter. We hope to get at least 75 national and local groups signed on. Solid environmental opposition to S. 1936 was a key reason for our success in the Senate and completely undercut the industry's argument that S.1936 was "good for the environment." If your Senator(s) voted against S. 1936, don't forget to write a brief note thanking him/her and urging them to vote to sustain a presidential veto, if necessary. Here is the vote list. These are the Senators who voted AGAINST S. 1936. All 100 Senators voted, if your Senator is not listed here, then he/she voted for the nuclear industry and S.1936. Following the list is the text of NIRS' press statement released just after the vote. Bryan, Reid, Nevada Mikulski, Sarbanes, Maryland Feingold, Boxer, California Kerry, Kennedy, Massachusetts Kerrey, Exon, Nebraska Akaka, Inouye, Hawaii Pell, Chafee, Rhode Island Bradley, Lautenberg, New Jersey Byrd, Rockefeller, West Virginia Bumpers, Pryor, Arkansas Lieberman, Dodd, Connecticut Conrad, Dorgan, North Dakota Daschle, South Dakota Moynihan, New York Ford, Kentucky Breaux, Louisiana Glenn, Ohio Bingaman, New Mexico Wyden, Oregon Wellstone, Minnesota Campbell, Colorado Baucus, Montana Biden, Delaware Coats, Indiana Feingold, Wisconsin Nuclear Information and Resource Service 1424 16th Street NW, #404, Washington, DC 20036 202-328-0002; fax: 202-462-2183; e-mail: nirsnet@igc.apc.org Web: www.nirs.org For Immediate Release Contact: Michael Mariotte, 301-277-3481 (7/31, pm) July 31, 1996 Mary Olson, 202-328-0002 STATEMENT ON SENATE VOTE ON S.1936 "While we obviously would have preferred that the Senate reject S. 1936, the "Mobile Chernobyl Act," we are pleased that a large minority of Senators voted against what Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) properly called "the most anti-environmental legislation" of this most anti-environmental Congress," said Michael Mariotte, executive director of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS). "More importantly, the 37 votes against S. 1936 make clear that President Clinton's anticipated and promised veto of this bill will be sustained," Mariotte said. "If anything, the margin to sustain the veto will be even larger." "Any further consideration of this bill--by the House or a Conference Committee--is a waste of legislators' time and taxpayer-supplied resources," said Mary Olson of NIRS' Radioactive Waste Project. "The nuclear power industry has spent millions of dollars trying to get this piece of corporate welfare enacted, and it's now obvious that won't happen. We'd like to thank Nevada Senators Reid and Bryan for their courageous and effective work against this travesty of a bill, and thank President Clinton for his upcoming veto, if the House passes similar legislation." --30--