MOBILE CHERNOBYL BILL STALLS IN SENATE

The U.S. Senate June 2 decided not to take up the Mobile Chernobyl bill, in a landmark victory for both the environmental community and anti-tobacco forces. The vote probably means that the bill will not be taken up again this Congress.

The key vote came on a procedural motion by Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) who tried to invoke cloture (cut off a promised filibuster by Nevada Senators Harry Reid and Richard Bryan) and thus allow the Senate to vote on the bill. A 3/5 majority, or 60 votes, is needed to invoke cloture and the final vote was close: 56-39 in favor of cloture. But it wasn’t enough to proceed on the bill.

After the vote, Senate Energy Committee chairman Frank Murkowski (R-Alaska) reportedly told Sen. Reid that he would not bring up the bill again this Congress. And House Speaker Newt Gingrich released a statement after the vote stating that he does not expect the House to vote again on Mobile Chernobyl this Congress either. Since the previously-passed House and Senate versions are fairly far apart on the specifics of the legislation, it appears Mobile Chernobyl has failed for the second consecutive Congress.

Rep. John Ensign (R-Nev.), who is running against Reid for the Senate this year, had the day before said that Gingrich had promised him that the House would not again vote on the bill. Even some bill supporters in the Senate took that to mean that further action on the bill would be hopeless and a waste of time. However, despite being pressed by the media, by various Senators and environmental groups throughout the day on June 2, Gingrich refused to confirm his promise to Ensign until after the Senate vote.

The final vote on cloture was on a near-party line basis. Several Democrats who previously had voted for the bill, including Sens. Leahy, Harkin, Wyden, Graham, Cleland, Murray and Kohl, voted against cloture, while two Republicans opposed to the bill itself, Coats and Campbell, voted for cloture. Of Democrats, only Sens. Hollings, Robb and Levin voted for cloture. Levin was the last vote and didn’t cast his vote until a count was made and it was clear cloture would fail with or without his vote. No Republicans voted against cloture.

One reason for the switch in Democratic votes was that invoking cloture would have meant that the Senate would have dropped its debate over pending tobacco legislation, and it was by no means clear that it would be easy to bring up that legislation again. The Democratic leadership made a point of telling Democrats that they wanted to debate tobacco, not radioactive waste, and that a vote for cloture was a vote for the tobacco industry.

However, the vote may also indicate a weakening of support for the Mobile Chernobyl legislation, which passed the Senate in April 1997 by a 65-34 margin. Subsequent events have undercut some of the nuclear industry’s key arguments for the bill. For example, on May 8 a federal appeals court rejected claims by the nuclear utilities and numerous state agencies that the Department of Energy must begin moving high-level waste across the country this year or pay enormous damages. Instead, the court said that the contract DOE signed with the utilities in 1982 had adequate terms to cover the delay in shipments, and told the utilities to work out their problems with the agency.

The DOE responded quickly with an offer that would have allowed utilities to recover some of the interest the government otherwise would earn from the Nuclear Waste Fund collected by utilities, and put that money toward the costs of on-site storage of high-level waste. The DOE estimated that could be worth from about $11 million to $337 million per utility. But the utilities immediately rejected the offer, making clear that their interest is not in safe or economical storage of the waste, but in moving it off their land, period.

Moreover, the utilities appeared more interested in changing the House and Senate-passed bills to reduce the money collected under the Nuclear Waste Fund. That move may have backfired with the late April release of a study done for the State of Nevada by three think-tanks, and reviewed by the accounting firm of KPMG Peat Marwick, which estimates the total cost of the government’s high-level nuclear waste program at Yucca Mountain, Nevada is now almost $54 Billion. Since the total amount DOE estimates will be collected by the Nuclear Waste Fund is only some $28 Billion (and that’s if every reactor operates its entire licensed lifetime, which no reactor yet has done), there is a foreseeable shortfall of nearly $26 Billion. The nuclear industry would like that shortfall, and more, to be paid by taxpayers. It isn’t clear yet what the Congress intends to do about the problem.

According to the study, the centralized "interim" dumpsite at Yucca Mountain that was the focus of the Mobile Chernobyl legislation would cost $9.2 Billion. Stopping the "interim" program would save that money right off the bat.

The study identified several uncertainties in its estimates that could increase the actual costs of the high-level waste program. Among them were new scientific problems with the Yucca Mountain site itself, and possible costs involved with "grassroots activism" against radioactive waste transport.

The final new factor was the collapse of the German radioactive waste transport program. In late April, not long after the transport of six waste casks to an "interim" storage facility at Ahaus (see April 1998 Monitor), it was revealed that similar casks used to bring German waste to the French facility at Le Hague for reprocessing were contaminated, and so were the trains bringing them. Subsequent investigation found contamination levels 3,000 times or more above legal limits, and the French railroad has refused, at least temporarily, to allow any more waste trains to run in France.

The German government quickly suspended shipments to Le Hague, and then similar shipments to Sellafield, England. But the Social Democrats, allied with the Greens and Free Democrats, called for a permanent end to all waste shipments, including to the "interim" facilities at Gorleben and Ahaus, and the resignation of the country’s environmental minister, Angela Merkel, who has steadfastly backed radioactive waste transport. All German shipments of any kind have now ended, and are unlikely to begin again in the near future. Moreover, the Social Democrats, who have now adopted a policy of no radioactive waste shipments, are widely expected to win this Fall’s national elections, meaning that the shipments could be ended for years.

At this point, the nuclear industry’s failure to achieve its number one goal of the past four years—passage of the Mobile Chernobyl legislation—appears to be a momentous victory for the environmental movement. However, the industry and its Congressional backers have been persistent, and it is not inconceivable that it could come up again before Congress adjourns in late September. For now, celebrate; we will keep you informed.

Thank President Clinton too, who has been steadfast in his promise to veto Mobile Chernobyl legislation.

Perhaps now we can begin work on promoting an environmental radioactive waste policy, one that recognizes that Yucca Mountain is unacceptable for long-term waste storage, that centralized "interim" storage is equally unacceptable, that addresses the huge financial shortfall in the Nuclear Waste Fund, and that has as its basis the understanding that the biggest problem is the continued generation of lethal atomic waste.