The following is a story from 1998 – written as an update for regional newsletters.

The Great Mystery: Update on Mobile Chernobyl in Beltway Land

by Mary Olson, Nuclear Information & Resource Service

It was a miracle. The Great Mystery. The U.S. Senate was on the verge of a second vote on the Mobile Chernobyl bill (a complete revision of the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982) when suddenly the whole thing went up in a puff of smoke, tobacco smoke at that. Mobile Chernobyl is dead until next year, and we are smiling.

Sponsored by the nuclear power industry, this legislation would put up a parking lot (“temporary” storage) for high-level nuclear waste on Western Shoshone lands in Nevada. The waste would come from civilian power reactors and military and navel reactors. Deadly waste would travel across 43 states, though dozens of cities like Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City and L.A. to the one site under study for a permanent nuclear waste site: Yucca Mountain. This legislation would ship the waste first, ask questions later.

The Western Shoshone People tell us this violates the Treaty of Ruby Valley, and to stop studying the site. Mother Earth tells us this is a bad idea, registering over 600 earthquakes over 2.5 within a 25 mile radius of Yucca Mountain since 1978. Even some DOE scientists have expressed concerns about this site. President Clinton says it is bad policy to send the waste there before the decision on whether it is the permanent site is made. Clinton has vowed to veto the bill for the last 3 years.

NIRS, Nukewatch and hundreds of groups nationwide have worked to get Congress to stop this bill (this congress, S 104 sponsored by Murkowski-R, AK and HR 1270 Sponsored by Bliley-R, VA). Together we have stopped this bill one year after another, by the skin of our teeth. These bills were first introduced in 1994.

In a rear-guard fight we have had two tools to use: Clinton’s veto threat and the Nevada Senator’s ability to filibuster. Our vehicle has been the transportation issue (pun intended), where suddenly WE ALL LIVE IN NEVADA, and nuclear waste becomes a home-town issue all across the land. We have built a block of Senators willing to oppose the bill. Not enough to stop it, but enough (one third plus 1) to sustain a veto. A big concern for next year is that 4 of these Senators are retiring ( Glenn, OH; Ford, KY; Bumpers, AR; and Coats, IN). The coming elections are important to this issue.

Mobile Chernobyl passed both the House and the Senate last year, but a procedural maneuver stopped it for one more year. Tobacco. HO!

How did tobacco stop it? I usually squeal and howl when big policy issues like the fate of the next 12,000 human generations (one half-life of plutonium) are decided on procedural points and pure politics; until out team pulls it off! The Senate was embroiled in floor debate on the Tobacco Bill – how to regulate tobacco in the wake of the court decisions on smoking. Due to come up next was the Mobile Chernobyl bill. The Senate had already passed this bill, but now they were to vote on the House version. It had been determined that it is a new tax bill since it changes the nuclear ratepayers payments to the Nuclear Waste Fund. All tax bills must start in the house. This gave the Nevadans a second chance to filibuster.

To move debate from the Tobacco bill to Waste, the Senate would vote on a motion to proceed from one bill to the other. Nevada Senators Dick Bryan and Harry Reid leapt up to filibuster this motion. The vote to cut off their filibuster (cloture) did not carry. In fact we creamed them! (For a list of how the Senate voted, visit www.citizen.org or www.nirs.org ). We had never won a cloture vote in this whole fight! The victory was partly due to the Democrats deciding that they wanted to keep the debate on Tobacco. The beauty of a motion to proceed vote is that it is a vote both on the upcoming issue and the one at hand.

The vote was glorious that day, but not enough to kill the bill for the session. The sponsors could simply come back after the Tobacco debate was over, except for the pure politics part. The Senate race in Nevada this year features an incumbent, Reid who is a Democrat. He is challenged by a Republican, Ensign, currently in the US House. Both of these guys are working to stop this bill and win the hearts of Nevada. When Ensign saw that Harry Reid was going to be able to take credit for stopping Mobile Chernobyl, he decided to run out in front of that political train and figuratively throw himself on the tracks. He issued a statement the day before the cloture vote in the Senate, saying that House Speaker Newt Gingrich had given his solemn word that he would not bring the waste bill back up in the House this session of Congress. The only way to finish the bill would been to have another House vote…

On the day of the Nuclear/Tobacco vote, everyone – nuke-boosters, nuke-busters, media, were all trying to get Gingrich’s office to confirm what Ensign had said. They took messages, but no return calls came. Ten minutes after the Senate voted, to support the Nevada Senator’s filibuster, Gingrich’s office faxed out a statement. It stated briefly that the Speaker had no intention of bringing the Nuclear Waste bill back up in the House since it was likely to be vetoed anyway.

When the nuclear industry scratches it’s head, and howls that pure politics should not decide policy issues, this time I think they should look as far as Coyote for the cause. For me, an activist grown of this beltway game, it is comforting to have tobacco on our side in fighting to sustain the rights of the Western Shoshone People and all others who claim Serpent Swimming West (the local name for Yucca Mountain) as sacred.

However, never doubt that the boosters will be back. Next year.