Current Legislative Status:
The House passed HR 1270 (Upton R-MI) on October 30th, 1997, 304 to 120.
Last April 15, the Senate passed S 104 (Murkowski R-AK) 65 to 34.
The House had a margin in favor of the bill that can override a veto. However, it requires both the House and the Senate to overturn a veto, but only one of them to sustain it. In this whole fight, this is the ONLY vote that matters. Be sure your Rep and Senators know that. Only 4% of all vetoes in the history of the US Congress have been overridden. In the House we only have to turn 26 Member’s votes to support the veto in order to sustain it (which would be good insurance). This can be done, with your action.
Next Steps on Capitol Hill
The usual course of business is for the House and Senate bills to be sent to conference committee. In theory, compromises are hashed out and the bills are merged. In practice, however, there is a history of completely new provisions appearing in the final product, known as the ‘conference report.’ For example, the 1992 Energy Policy Act conference report waived Yucca Mountain from having to meet the EPA’s high-level nuclear waste isolation standards. This provision had never appeared in any previous version of the bill, and had no hearing. The conference report — which will simply be called the Nuclear Waste Policy Act — will then go to the House and the Senate for another vote on each side, and then to the President to be signed into law, or in this case, vetoed.
In the case of Mobile Chernobyl, there are some parliamentary “jumping jacks” that the Nevada delegation, who are the champions opposing the bill, are using to slow it down. Any and all publicity on the issue in your community will assist this effort of slowing things down.
Time is our friend because this congressional session is unusually short (just about 100 working days) due to the Fall congressional elections. It is easy to see that those looking to be reelected do not want to have to vote on bringing nuclear waste through their state and in most cases, their congressional district (320 congressional districts will be affected by nuclear waste transportation) while they are campaigning. If we make this issue HOT, there is a very good chance that Congress will drop the bill before it is ever sent to Clinton. This is the goal.
State and Local Action to Stop Mobile Chernobyl — In February we have heard:
The South Florida Green Party has come alive on this issue, holding demonstrations on the transport route.
Students at the University of Kansas are staging a mock-nuclear transport accident on campus.
The St. Louis Board of Alderman recently passed an updated resolution opposing the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1997.
There are five bills in the Indiana State legislature on nuclear waste transportation, allowing Citizen Action Coalition to continue to elevate the issue.
A contingent of veteran nuclear waste organizers and a Mock Waste Cask went to Salt Lake City to support Skull Valley Goshute opponents of the “private” alternate Mobile Chernobyl site on their reservation. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission was holding hearings in relation to a site license application.
Send us word of what you are doing so we can include it in our next update.
NEXT STEPS YOU CAN TAKE :
Get this issue in your local paper. Write a letter to the editor. Try calling C-Span during one of its call-in shows–its national audience is larger than you might think. Also: NIRS is organizing a number of co-releases of new information on this issue (still embargoed) over the next six weeks. Contact Mary Olson at NIRS for more information (maryo@igc.org or 301-270-6477).
Consider how to inject nuclear waste transportation as an election issue. Tax-exempt organizations cannot endorse or oppose candidates, but we can ask all candidates what their position on an issue is. This could include bird-dogging candidates; organizing a candidate forum specifically on nuclear waste transport issues; letters to the editor; raising nuclear waste and Mobile Chernobyl at events already organized; and other possibilities…
Letter campaign — either, “Dear President Clinton, thank you for your plan to veto Mobile Chernobyl” and cc your Rep and Senators, or the other way — “Dear Rep/Senator — how dare you vote to bring nuclear waste through my town” and cc to Clinton.
Start organizing really BIG phone trees now — if we are going all the way to the veto override vote this year, we will need calls to The Hill in UNPRECEDENTED numbers. We need to be able to send out an Alert and know that thousands of calls are going in to the Senate and the House. Don’t doubt for a moment that the nuclear industry will be mounting its own well-financed “grassroots” campaign!
* For those who thrive on the arcane, here is a brief explanation of the parliamentary “jumping jacks” mentioned above:
Senators Bryan and Reid of Nevada are committed to stopping this legislation. They have the ability to filibuster any move that requires Senate Floor action. This includes the appointment of conferees to the conference committee, the vote on the conference report, and the vote on the veto override.
There is an additional diversion that may come from the House side. Representative Ensign (R-NV) is pressing to have the Mobile Chernobyl bill considered a tax bill since it changes the way the nuclear waste fund is collected. All tax bills must originate in the House. Since the Senate voted on Mobile Chernobyl first, if this sticks, they will have to scrap S104 and start over with the House bill, giving even more chances to filibuster in the Senate.
If Bryan and Reid do not win a cloture vote (that would pretty much stop the legislation), they are still allowed 30 hours of floor time for filibuster debate. All the possible filibuster opportunities combined add up to 18 days of Senate Floor time. The later in the session it gets, the more impact such delays have since the Senate will be trying to pass spending bills and then leave D.C. to campaign.
None of these parliamentary “jumping jacks” is sufficient to stop Mobile Chernobyl if the Congress has a will to force it through. That is where we come in — we have to keep them from being willing to do it — we are the ones who ultimately will STOP MOBILE CHERNOBYL.
Mary Olson
Nuclear Information & Resource Service
1424 16th St. NW Suite 404
Washington, DC 20036
301-270-6477 fax 301-270-4291
maryo@igc.org Website: www.nirs.org